This was a bright fine day. A lot of us got into a surf boat and went o shore. We first went to the Fortress. It is immense and the number of cannon surprised us. I think it is a mile and a half around the ramparts, and enclosese 80 acres. In the inside are houses for officers and quarters, and trees - live oak. The 10th N. York Vols or National Zouaves are quartered in it. Their uniform light blue, with [pink Solfine trimming?] We saw the Union Gun down on the beach, 12 inch bore, and the Floyd lying beside it, not mounted. There are an immense number of guns, many of them ten inch, lying outside. 150 at least are mounted. Grass is grown over the piles of ball inside. From one side we saw Camp Hamilton, and the ruins of Hamilton - nothing but the stacks of chimnies standing up, like ghosts. We went to a store - a little store but got everything you asked for. I got some drawing paper. The grocery also furnished everything wanted at very advanced prices however. Capt. Cook, formerly of the old Fourth met us on the beach and came pver amd tppl dinner with us. I amused myself trying to sketch the [?] - but the vessel kept swinging around and I was so slow that I did not succeed & wound up my labors sketching a hermaphrodite brig lying near us. As the Adjt. came in Blair says "There comes consolidated report." "Consolidated Bible" says Mallory. "Bound in calf" says Blair. The "Scout" and the Brig that we towed sailed somewhere this afternoon. Part of the fleet is gone. We have [to?] coal - 25 tons & take in water yet - 100 tons of coal last six days. Do we go up the Potomac? Up the James River?We have our bay Pilot on board yet. Captain says he won't know but his pilot will be changed. 1/2 past nine o'clock. P.M. Lt. Reno just came in, and gave orders to get upstream and start. It may be interesting, hereafter, to note our conjectures. Rodamel asserts that we will not go out of James River. Bently, the reporter, says we are going to Lynhaven Bay - behind Norfolk. Beaver asserts that we go to Savannah. The Col. said that we go to [Lece?]
Saturday January 11.Ten o'clock P.M. anchor heaved and we start. The water in the roads smooth as glass but it heaves now that we are out in the bay. The Col, rec'd sealed orders, merely told us that we were going to sea. Blair gets the [?] but can't [fish?] it yet. The Col. says he will tell us our destination in the morning. The commissary says that there are no better [?] than we have. The chief engineer has been on this boat 8 years, [?] in the stormy coast between Portland and St. Johns that she was thoroughly overhauled at New York before coming to Annapolis - so that so far as good steamanship, good enginners and a staunch boat can carry us we will go safely. 12 o'clock, our bay pilot takes leave of us at the light ship, and we steam out into the [?]