Still suffering from my cold. Discovered the cause. I have been accustomed to wearing top boots & heavy sky blue pants. Very foolishly on Saturday after our return I put on cloth pants, and shoes, & have been wearing them since, though it has been considerably colder. Never thought of it, until this morning & have reverted to my top boots again. This afternoon Beaver & I took a stroll down to Ft Ellis [8 Dupre?]. This fort here is Ft Lane, five guns. The next below is fort Ellis of nine guns - built of sand shows a terrific explosion. The field all around is full of shell & canister, scattered all around - pieces of the magazine hinges of the door - broken arches lying all around. Below this is Dixie. Its construction is peculiar. A heavy frame of logs, floored, covered and sided with planks - two rooms thus made for two rifled guns. Outside frames of [?] are made about the size of barrels and filled with sand, connected by bundles of withes 20-30 feet long. These are built all around and over them making them bomb proof. We could see that the withes were tied with ropes taken from the sunken schooners - where they were cut off the sails. Below This are frames where they made these bundles. One of these guns was dismounted and spiked. There was preparation for building another of a similar kind near it. They named that saucy thing very properly Dixie. The next one below of 13 guns is called Ft Thompson. We got back in time for dress parade. We pulled for some moss that grows on the trees here. It was the first thing I noticed when I landed at Slocum creek. It is of grayish color and looks like the beard of an old man tied fast to limb. It has that peculiarity that it don't creep along the limb, but hangs in a bunch as if tied to it. We had an elegant supper of fritters, bread, omelette, ham, fried potatoes &c. We move our camp up near Gen Reno's head quarters tomorrow. We have now two cases of varioloid in our company Hartz and Dougherty - Captain Taylor is down with it too.
