XLVI
GOT your letter, with picture, on Friday morning. I placed the picture on one of my shelves, and when Gunnison came in Damon picked it up and asked him if he had ever seen the picture of his youngest sister. “Gunny” told him no, and when he looked at the picture said, “O, well, you can’t fool me; that’s the girl Mart Haynes travels with when he’s home.” But Damon actually made him believe it was his sister. “Well,” said Norman as he held your two pictures up for comparison, “they look enough alike to be twins. If Mart should see the two together he wouldn’t know which one to hitch onto.”
You have, of course, heard that the rebels evacuated their positions last Sunday. They burned everything they could not take away—camps and houses, their gunboat “George Page” and various smaller craft that had taken refuge with her up Quantico Creek. It was a wild scene as viewed from this side. For miles it was an ocean of smoke and flame. They left eighteen or twenty big guns, with other property that could not be burned.
How this will affect our movements is the problem now. The old rumor factory is working overtime, and one man’s guess is as good as another’s. The story that appears to find most favor is that we are going to New Mexico, where troops are much needed just now. Another wise man has it that we are going down to reinforce Burnside. Sickles’ brigade is actually on board steamers now, ready to be transported somewhere.
The frogs are “peeping” now in every brook and mudhole. Damon shakes his head wisely, and says if we could only stay here till they get a little bigger and fatter, we’d live on frogs’ legs. For dinner today Slade, Damon, Haynes & Gunnison had a great pile of fried oysters.