Joe Howland to Eliza Woolsey Howland.
Steamer Daniel Webster, April 18.
I have a chance to send a boat ashore to get a mail and so can say good morning to you. All the steamers are lying in the stream two or three miles below Alexandria receiving their “tows.” There are about a hundred schooners and barges to take down. We tow four. All’s well. The boat is very crowded, but the men are more comfortable than I supposed they would be and are behaving admirably. The work of getting them well on board was a hard one. I have 820 officers and men on this boat and the four schooners. The sick are doing well; the change of air and rest are curing the dysentery. I do not know where we are going.
