Jacksonville, Florida,
Sunday, April 10, 1864.
Dear Sister L.:—
It is a beautiful Sunday morning, gloriously fresh after yesterday’s rain. The sun is not high enough yet to be uncomfortably warm. The weather is very much like northern June. Such a delicious freshness about the morning air, and as the sun mounts up, a glow that makes a cool shade appreciated.
The “Sunday Morning Inspection” is going on now. Being on “special duty” myself I am excused from that, and while the captain and Lieutenant Thompson are examining guns and knapsacks, I am sitting in the tent writing to you.
The band of sable performers is discoursing “Hail Columbia” and “America,” and they play well, too, very well for the length of time they have been practicing.
Since I wrote to you we have moved our camp. We had the most beautiful spot in the vicinity. A high point of land overlooking the river and fringed with magnificent live oaks, and dotted here and there with orange trees and magnolias. It did not look very well when we first went there, but then we soon fixed it up.
When we got well fortified, Colonel Hawley concluded we were not strong enough to hold the place, and ordered us to change camps with the Seventh Connecticut, his own regiment. Our present camp is on a perfectly level plain of sand regularly laid out, and the streets are lined with pine trees which the men have set out, giving it a very pretty appearance. We have one wall tent for the officers of each company. We have the fly of ours stretched in front of the tent. It makes a very nice place to sit in the heat of the day. We are to have it paved with brick, which are plenty hereabouts, but we have not got it done yet. Behind the tent is our mess-room roofed with shelter tents, where at stated hours Dickson serves up the staff of life and ham and potatoes. Also the dwelling of Dickson himself and his brick cooking-range. Around the whole is a double row of pines. Can you see by that little description our surroundings? Inside we have our bed, our table and bookcase. On the table are books and writing materials, my flute and chess, the last Atlantic and the papers, read till they actually get thin.
The court still continues to meet every day from 10 till 4 o’clock and I do little but attend that.
I met Almon in the street the other day. He was looking well. Spoke of a projected raid across the river in which he was to take part. A raid after the enemy’s fresh beef, to be converted of course to the benefit of the Yankee invaders.
