Annapolis, Md., April 10, 1864.
Dear Mother, — . . . The court-martial that I am on meets for the first time to-morrow morning. After calling the roll, they will adjourn until Wednesday, as the Judge Advocate has just got out of a small-pox hospital, and of course has had to burn all his clothes. He is going to Baltimore to buy new clothes, and hence the necessity of an adjournment.
General Burnside dropped down on us for about thirty seconds yesterday. He went off again immediately and started for New York. To-day we have had two visitors, one was John Hayden and the other Mr. Peabody from Boston, brother of Oliver Peabody. . . .
The regiment is in very good condition and the men behave very well indeed. They will soon be ready to go into a fight, or rather be fitted for it, for I don’t think that there is much of that foolish “longing for a fight” extant nowadays.
I am perfectly well, etc. I had a slight cold the other day, which alarmed me a little, but falsely, I am glad to say.
I see very little of Annapolis, as I don’t leave camp much, and as I don’t care about going there. It is a very old-fashioned town, decidedly Secesh in its proclivities, and full of stragglers and drunkards, —not altogether a desirable place to visit. One can see officers drinking with their men, etc., there, which is enough to disgust me with the place. There are some very fine old-fashioned houses there, which seem the very picture of comfort. I wish I could transport one of them to Jamaica Plain, to live in it after the war is over. . . .
