y, my most arduous duty, when
not on special duty or detached service, was as field officer of the
day. This necessitated the visiting occasionally during the day and
night, our videttes and picket posts which were stationed on the roads
into the country, and at intersecting points in the fields; and also
crossing in a skiff the Mississippi river, to visit the troops
stationed to guard a telegraph station on the other side. This station
was in the vicinity of a famous duelling ground,--a path not far from
the river bank,--to which in former days the young bloods of the town
and vicinity would resort to repair their wounded honor, according to
the rules of the code. As we were too short of horses always to
furnish a mounted orderly, the officer of the day would at night, have
to make his rounds alone. There was a picturesqueness in those rides
in the solemn hours of the night, a portion of the way over deserted
plantations where the weeds would be as high as one's head on
horseback, the path at times fringing the borders of swamps where the
moss hung in festoons from the stately cypress trees, past lonely
negro cabins, where sometimes I heard the inmates in the midnight
hours, singing some plaintive melody in tones the most subdued.

In addition to our routine work, our officers were largely detailed
for staff, court-martial and other duties. The frequent attempts at
smuggling contraband goods through our lines, also necessitated
military commissions for the trial of these as well as various other
civil offences,--on which duty some of us were always engaged. As a
consequence, we were always short-handed, and tours of duty came as
often as was agreeable. The fall months of 1864 were marked by
occasional raids in our vicinity, with orders, at times, to sleep on
our arms. The capture of a large supply of revolvers, which were
surreptitiously landed near us, indicated the necessity of strictly
guarding the lines, and at the same time, furnish those of us who
needed them, an ample supply of that weapon.

During this period, we organized schools for the instruction of our
men. While some of them were comparatively well educated and were very
serviceable in various kinds of clerical work, a large proportion of
them were destitute of the most rudimentary knowledge. Through the
Christian Commission, of which Ex-Mayor J.V.C. Smith, of Boston, was
in our department the efficient agent, we were amply supplied with
various kinds o