hands at the
prospect of at last getting away from our abominable quarters. The huts
were set on fire; bonfires were made from the great piles of combustible
debris which had accumulated during the winter; the rude barns which had
sheltered our horses and mules added to the conflagration, and for an
hour or so before embarking we held high carnival amidst the smoking
ruins of "Camp Misery." At Acquia Creek we went on board the transport
steamers Metamora and Juniata, and the next morning steamed down the
broad Potomac.

The agreeable change of situation, together with the pleasant sail, were
very invigorating, and the men seemed almost to forget that they were
soldiers, and to imagine themselves on some holiday excursion. Arriving
off Fortress Monroe at four A. M. of the second day out, we
awaited orders from General Dix, which being received we proceeded to
Newport News and disembarked. We had at last got beyond Virginia mud,
though still in Virginia, the soil at this place being light and sandy,
and the ground for miles almost as level as Dexter Training Ground.

The schooner Elizabeth and Helen from Providence, which we had long been
expecting, arrived about the same time. She brought a little more than
three hundred boxes from friends at home for our regiment, and our
portion of the cargo of vegetables was about ninety barrels. So that,
altogether, we had a "right smart heap" of the good things from home.
The contents of the boxes being largely of a very perishable nature,
were considerably damaged on account of having been so long on the
journey. But we made the best of it, and enjoyed the unpacking of those
boxes quite as much, without doubt, as our friends at home did the
packing. Nothing could have been more beneficial to us than the generous
supply of vegetables which we received, having subsisted mainly on salt
meats and hard-tack while at Fredericksburg.

"A" tents were here issued to the companies; everything was cheerful and
tidy about the camp, and we seemed to be living in a new world. My
duties called me to Fortress Monroe nearly every day, which gave me a
delightful little sail, together with charming scenery and plenty of
work. The scene of the exciting and unequal contest between the Merrimac
and the Cumberland, in Hampton Roads in March, 1862, was immediately in
front of us; and about a mile from the shore, in the direction of
Norfolk, could be seen a portion of the masts of the latter, emerging