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and retired much refreshed and highly patriotic.
One of the great sights down there is the huge army hospital, a whole plain, white with large tents.
These are capable of receiving 7000 patients and have at present about 3000.
All are under charge of my excellent classmate, Dr. Ned Dalton.
July 6, 1864
We have no rain here — never expect any; air hazy with a faint dust, finer than twice volted flour, which settles on everything — but that won't kill anybody.
So Ewell is (or was — don't know his whereabouts at this precise moment) at Harper's Ferry.
We knew he was poking up there somewhere.
As to the A. of P., it is sitting here, trying to get some fresh cabbages, not very successfully, so far — the last issue, I am told, furnished one small one to every fifteen men. Old Uncle Lee is “in posish,” as General Williams would say, and seems to remark: “Here I am; I have sent off Ewell; now why don't you come on?”
I suppose you think I speak flippantly of what the French call the “situation” ; but one gets so desperate that it is no use to be serious.
Last night, after I had got to bed, I heard the officer of the day go with a despatch into the General's tent and wake him up. Presently the General said: “Very well, tell General Wright to send a good division.
I suppose it will be Ricketts's.”
And he turned over and went asleep again.
Not so Ricketts, who was speedily waked up and told to march to City Point, thence to take steamers for Washington, or rather for Baltimore.
We do not appreciate now, how much time, and labor, and disappointment, and reorganization, and turning out bad officers, have to be done, before an army can be got in such condition that a division of several thousand men may be suddenly waked at midnight and, within an hour or so, be on 