October 30. Tompkins Farm.— [I] walked with Captain Gaines two and one-half or three miles down to Gauley Bridge. Called on Major William H. Johnston and Swan, paymaster and clerk for our regiment [for] Cracraft, quartermaster sergeant, who wanted Dr. McCurdy’s pay. To get it, drew my own and sent him two hundred and sixty dollars and blank power-of-attorney to me to draw his pay. The doctor is sick and wants to go home. Our regiment suffers severely with camp fever. About one hundred and twenty absent, mostly sick, and as many more prescribed for here. This out of nine hundred and fifty. Severe marches, ill-timed, in rain, etc., etc., is one great cause. Then, most of our men have been used to comfortable homes, and this exposed life on these mountains is too much for them.
Well, we dined at a Virginia landlady’s, good coffee, good biscuit; in short, a good homelike dinner. Walked immediately back.
