8th. —There is almost a mutiny this morning. No rations, and unless there should be better things before night, I shall not be surprised at any violence. Before leaving Newport News I laid in a supply for myself and servant for two weeks, but for two days I have been dividing with my hospital attendants, and my supply is about exhausted. When I awoke this morning, my fire was surrounded by men and officers clamoring for something to eat. They had some how got it into their heads that the hospital should be able to remove all the ills that flesh is heir to. I cooked what I had, and distributed till all was gone. Although hungry, I think I feel better to-night, than if I had permitted my mess chest to have remained locked by the key of selfishness. At night—a few boxes of hard bread have partially calmed the angry storm which has been rising. But two or three hard crackers to a man who has not had a meal for three days, is but small satisfaction. We are promised, however, beef, pork, bread, sugar and coffee in the morning, and how many hungry men are hopefully looking for the morning, that the cravings of exhausted nature may be gratified. The rain still pours, and if it continues another day the roads will be impassable for teams, and we shall be compelled to fall back to some point where we can be provisioned by water. We are within four miles of two of the finest navigable rivers in the world. The mouths of both of them are held by us, and that of neither is twenty miles away; and here we are, almost starving for want of transportation. This all seems to me an indication of an unaccountable oversight somewhere—” shiftless!” If we had, before coming here, on our way, conquered twelve miles of one of these rivers, we should have had good water transportation for all our rations. But holding the mouths, we have advanced, satisfied to permit the enemy to hold the rest. What a climate for mud and rain; and what a country and people for poverty and indolence. Though we are almost in sight of the historical cities of Yorktown and Jamestown, the country is not half so far advanced in improvements and culture as the new State of Wisconsin, or even the still newer and wilder Minnesota. What a curse is slavery! I do not like the brigadeship. It places too great a distance between the sick and the Surgeon.
