"This is an order for transportation. The captain-quartermaster is to
fill it out, to be good for any thing."

I confessed my ignorance of army red-tape, and took back the papers to
have them finished. He inquired for my pass from the provost-marshal.
That, too, I knew nothing about; but the army captain came to my
relief, taking my papers and getting the transportation filled, with a
pass from the provost-marshal. These lessons I found important in all
my after work.

We soon landed at Island No. 10, the area of which was two hundred and
fifty acres of available plow land, with an excellent orchard of three
hundred bearing apple and peach trees. Upon this island were seven
hundred freedmen, who were making good use of the rich donations of
twenty-five plows, with harrows, hoes, axes, rakes, and garden and
field seeds, from Indiana and Ohio. Their superintendent, Chaplain
Thomas, told me that he never saw a more willing and obedient people.
They mostly lived in tents. Government had furnished lumber to erect a
few temporary buildings. An old dilapidated farmhouse, and a few log-
huts formerly occupied by the overseer and slaves, were the homes of
Captain Gordon and Surgeon Ransom, with their families, who seemed to
enjoy camp life as well as any I had seen. They had in charge four
companies of soldiers. Their hospital assumed an air of neatness and
comfort.

We took a stroll over the battle-ground, and saw the deep furrows
plowed by the terrible shells, in which a horse might be buried. Here
and there were interspersed "rebel rat-holes," as they were called,
dug seven or eight feet deep, and nearly covered with planks and two
or three feet of earth, in which they dropped themselves, after