Old Point Comfort, dropped anchor off Fortress Monroe. The scene around
us was one of beauty, though many of its adornments were the results and
means of wrong. The sunshine was brighter, the verdure greener to our
eyes weary of the sea, and the calm was milder and more grateful that we
had so long tossed in the storm.

The anchor was soon drawn up again and the _Forest City_ steamed up the
James River toward Newport News, and turning to the left between the
low, pine-grown banks, passed Norfolk to leave the New Hampshire
detachment at Portsmouth.

Coming back to Fortress Monroe, some freight was landed; and in the calm
clear light of the moon, we swung away from shore and dropping down the
mouth of the river, rounded Old Point, and, going up the Chesapeake,
entered the Potomac in the night-time.

OFF SHORE, ALEXANDRIA. _23d._--Here we anchored last night after the
main detachment was landed, and the Vermont and Massachusetts men
remained on board another night. We hear we are to go right to the
field, where active operations are going on. This seems hard. We have
not till now given up the hope that we were not to go out into Virginia
with the rest of the men, but were to be kept here at Washington.
Fierce, indeed, are our trials. I am not discouraged entirely; but I am
weak from want of food which I can eat, and from sickness. I do not know
how I am going to live in such way, or get to the front.

P.S. We have just landed; and I had the liberty to buy a pie of a woman
hawking such things, that has strengthened me wonderfully.

CAMP NEAR CULPEPER. _25th._--My distress is too great for words; but I