Maryland. I used my crutches more skilfully and swiftly on my way to the boat than I had ever done before. There seemed a prospect of home, sweet home, before me. The chill winds blew fiercely, and I passed a very cold, unpleasant night on deck. Arrived at the Point about 3 o'clock P. M., and was assigned to Ward Fourteen, General Hospital.
November 24th.—Thanksgiving Day for the Lincolnites. Had a good dinner, better than any I have had since I left Winchester. We are anxious for a flag of truce boat to carry us to Dixie, and it is the perpetual theme of conversation. I bunk with Lieutenant Edmondson, of the Thirty-seventh Virginia, in order to keep warm.
November 25th—This is an intensely cold place. The Point is very bleak in winter, situated between Chesapeake bay and the Potomac river. The privates in the "prison pen" must suffer terribly, as they are thinly clothed, many in rags, and are poorly supplied with blankets and coal or wood. The fare is much better than at West's Buildings Hospital.
November 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th—Weather continues freezingly cold, and no truce boat yet. We are still hopeful, however.
December 1st to 9th—The officers have been separated from the privates, and put in ward "D," a Swiss cottage. Lieutenant J. P. Arrington, A. D. C., and Adjutant W. B. L. Reagan, Sixteenth battalion Tennessee cavalry, and myself are in the same room. They are very genial, pleasant gentlemen. Adjutant Reagan has had a leg amputated above the knee, and is in very delicate health. All three of us use crutches.
Recollections of the Elkhorn Campaign.
By General D. H. Maury.
[The following paper was not originally prepared for publication, but for the information of the accomplished gentleman to whom it is addressed, who has been engaged on a memoir of his father that great soldier and pure patriot, Albert Sydney Johnston; but it will be found to be a vivid sketch of men and events well worth preserving in these Papers.]
June 10th, 1876.
Colonel Wm. Preston Johnston:
My dear Colonel—In compliance with your request, I will endeavor to write you some recollections of the campaign of Elk-
