XIX
DIDN’T wake up very early this morning; but when I did I got up, quick—rolled out of a puddle of water I had been sleeping in. We moved over to this camp last Friday morning, and are in a most delightful location. It is about five miles from Washington, on the field where the battle of Bladensburg was fought in 1814. There is a little village, a little river, little hills, &c., and plenty of the very best of water close at hand. The place has quite a reputation for its mineral springs. There is one right in the village, and the water is so clear, so cool, so refreshing—only the merest suggestion of a mineral flavor.
It is surprising how many of my old friends I manage to run across. Gust. Hutchinson, who used to work with me in the old American office, is in the Massachusetts Eleventh, which is camped here. Almost every day I run across somebody I have known before.
August 15.—I have been about used up for the past two days, but now I must finish my letter. You can assure your rebel-sympathizing friends that the rebels cannot take the capital, and I do not believe they will attempt it. I hope they will try.
I have just received a paper with a list of the second company of Abbott Guards. I note that Roger Woodbury, Frank Johnson, Johnny Stokes and others of my old friends are in it. My uncle John has gone home. The climate did not agree with him as well as it does with me.