Wednesday, April 15th.
I went to the supper table last night too sick to eat anything; left the table and laid down on a lounge until the hotel keeper could show me a room; I retired early and slept well; got up this morning all right, but did not go to the breakfast table; took a lunch from my own haversack; walked out in town; went to the ten-pin alley and spent an hour rolling; had not played a game before for eight years, and enjoyed it very much; smoked a cigar, a notable scarcity in these times, and returned to the hotel, where I wrote a letter to Judge Devine, and one to my dear wife; may heaven’s choicest blessings rest upon her and my sweet children; went to the dinner table and found the landlady apologizing for some defect and two young females discussing the merits of the Episcopal and Baptist faith; got through dinner somehow and walked down to the quartermaster’s office; got the Vicksburg Whig; stretched myself out on the counter; read and took a nap; got up; went to the armory and would have enjoyed looking over the work very much but felt sick; it produces four Mississippi rifles per day at $30.00 a piece on contract with the state; I am now sitting at the foot of the hill below the armory.
