d. The nog gave out,
and we had to produce the jug. If we had had our sick messmate from
Williamsburg, we would have had noise (Noyes) all night, but as it
was it only lasted until one o'clock. Everybody in camp seemed to
be trying to make more noise than his neighbor. Beard told us next
day that it was a very well-conducted affair, that everything
passed off _so quietly_ with so much nog as that. He evidently went
to bed early after he left us. I saw Posey yesterday, he was
looking badly, seeming to have been troubled with the chills for
some time. Since it has become so cold we have had to take the cook
in the house, which makes eleven. This boy outsnores creation,
beating anything you ever heard; he woke me up last night, and I
thought it was the dog Cadet barking outside at the door.

"If you get this before ma sends off the expected-to-be-sent
package, and if there is some room, you might put in _one_ blanket.
Since we sleep two in a bunk, we spread our blankets across the
bunk. Brunet has three, and I have three, which makes it equal to
six apiece. Send the blanket; it shall do its share of warming, I
assure you. I suppose what ma sends will be my share of Christmas
in New Orleans. Our turkeys look droopy, and there is no telling
when they will peg out. We keep the gobbler's spirits up by making
him fight. The camp is full of turkeys, and we make ours fight
every day. _I have plenty of clothes and socks: I have over half a
dozen of woollen socks_.

"The Gopher Mess send their best regards.

"Yours affectionately,

"Co. A, ORLEANS CADETS,

"Louisiana Battalion, Williamsburg, Virginia."

The formation of Fenner's Louisiana Battery was attended by tremendous
difficulties and discouragements, patiently met, nobly overcome, by
the gallant officer who found himself at last at the head of a company
composed of men who, whether considered in the aggregate, or as
individuals, had not their superiors in the Confederate
armies,--intelligently brave, enthusiastic, patriotic, gentlemen by
birth, breeding, and education, whom chivalrous devotion to duty
forbade to murmur at any hardship which fell to their lot. As officers
or private soldiers, looking to the future of the Confederacy as to
something assured; never despairing, ready to follow wherever and
whenever a "hope" was led, no matter how "forlorn."

The record of this little band of devoted patriots has never