Dis year in de camp, and too much victual!" This "too much" is a favorite phrase out of their grateful hearts, and did not in this case denote an excess of dinner,--as might be supposed,--but of thanksgiving.
December 29.
Our new surgeon has begun his work most efficiently: he and the chaplain have converted an old gin-house into a comfortable hospital, with ten nice beds and straw pallets.

He is now, with a hearty professional faith, looking round for somebody to put into it.

I am afraid the regiment will accommodate him; for, although he declares that these men do not sham sickness, as he expected, their catarrh is an unpleasant reality.

They feel the dampness very much, and make such a coughing at dress-parade, that I have urged him to administer a dose of cough-mixture, all round, just before that pageant.

Are the colored race _tough ?_ is my present anxiety; and it is odd that physical insufficiency, the only discouragement not thrown in our way by the newspapers, is the only discouragement which finds any place in our minds.