h first
suggested to me the rule which I adopted when commanding an army
in the field--to do no drinking till after the day's fighting was
over. But, in fact, I never liked whisky, and never drank much,
anyhow.

We arrived in twenty-five days from Charleston, which was regarded
as a very satisfactory journey. At the fort I found Captain and
Brevet-Major Joseph A. Haskin, commanding; First Lieutenant A. P.
Hill, afterward lieutenant-general in the Confederate army; Dr. A.
J. Foard, assistant surgeon; and my classmate Livingston, brevet
second lieutenant; besides sixteen enlisted men--rather a close
approximation to the ideal of that old colonel who once said the
army would be delightful if it were not for the ---- soldiers.
But that was changed after a while by the arrival of recruits--
enough in one batch to fill the battery full. The battery had
recently come from the gulf coast, where yellow fever had done
destructive work. I was told that there happened to be only one
officer on duty with the battery--a Lieutenant somebody--when the
fever broke out, and that he resigned and went home. If that is
true, I trust he went into the Civil War and got killed in battle;
for that was the only atonement he could possibly make for leaving
his men in that way. But such cases have been exceedingly rare,
while those of the opposite extreme have not been uncommon, where
officers have remained with the sick and died there, instead of
going with the main body of their men to a more healthy place.
The proper place for a line officer is with the fighting force, to
care for it and preserve its strength by every means in his power,
for war may come to-morrow. The surgeons and their assistants must
and do fully care for the sick and wounded.

Life at Fort Capron was not by any means monotonous. It was varied
by sailing, fishing, and shooting, and even the continuity of sport
was broken twice a month, generally, by the arrival of the mail-
boat. But at length this diversion failed us. Some difference
occurred between the United States Post-office Department and the
mail-contractor on the St. John's River, and we got no mail for
three months. Then the commanding officer ordered me to go to
Charleston by the sloop that had brought us supplies, and bring
back the mail by the regular route. I made the round trip in little
more than a month. That same paymaster whom I had found away from
his post on my first arrival in Charlesto