The weather is so hot, and camp life so monotonous, that it requires the doggedness of a John Quincy Adams to write a journal. The only incident today was the fly of Dick’s tent catching fire. Beaver and I were sitting under the awning between the two when someone gave the yell - “your tent’s on fire.” Beaver seized the wash basin & commenced flinging water from a tub with which we threw slop water - He wasn’t particularly careful as to where he threw it, and as I had got around with a tin pitcher, not another tub, he gave me a few dabs - I did not notice it until after I sat down, the fire out and the narrow escape discussed, when an abominable smell greeted me - Beaver very truly compared it to the smell of a bread and milk poultice which had been three days on an old sore. In the evening, we went downtown. We stopped near a house when we heard a childish voice accompanying the piano with Dixie. The lady of the house came out and sat on a porch and kept up a talk with the sentry. We overheard her say that they would never give up - that their folks have no navy - when we got away from the sea-board, there would be more desperate work. Well said. We all know that both at Roanoke & here our gunboats were of no service except to cover our landing
