October 17, 1864,
City Point, Virginia.

Ominous clouds pass overhead, obscuring the lurid landscape with its accompanying horrors and desolations.  I lie bedridden once again, stricken by a persistent dysentery which threatens to disable me indefinitely.  General Grant continues to starve out Petersburg and salute the Rebels therein with daily salvos, in case they forget our presence.  The passing clouds answer the artillery with occasional rumblings of thunder, a subtle harmony intermingled with the mundane melodies of shot and shell.  Would that my innards cease their incessant desire to join in the chorus!  I continue to attempt to eat, a hardtack cracker here, a piece of dried beef there, but my stomach turns away all suitors, and I remain weak.  Mr. C.W. Palmer and Browne of the Tribune looked in on me yesterday with their Mr. Byington, a kindness which clearly did not go unnoticed, as I myself expressed to them in no uncertain terms.  I shall attempt more rest today, and see if I shall not sally forth down the hospital corridor later in the day.

10:45 am  Skirmishing has broken out again just south of the corrals – it would seem that the Rebels are intent on capturing fresh Yankee horseflesh and converting the poor equines to their poisonous doctrines.  A battery of regular artillery has been moved into place to oppose the enemy’s advance, but it would appear that no more than a battalion of their dismounted cavalry has been marshaled against us.  The crackle of rifle and carbine fire sputters on for some minutes, then falls off in a sad fit of exhaustion until the Rebels at last withdraw to their own lines once again. 

As the smoke clears, I can spy a score of bodies prone upon the ground, most clad in gray or butternut, a few crawling in piteous agony among the many who stir no more.  A Sgt. Schmeiser of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry is brought in with a chest wound, and, I am pleased to report, is determined by the surgeon and stewards to be spared a mortal injury.  The ball passed completely through his body, but managed to miss all vital organs.  Details of soldiers now sweep the field for other wounded men, and a few more lads in blue are carried in by stretcher along the line.  Our hospitals at City Point have become a veritable metropolis, populated by as great a multitude of races and languages as can be found along Broadway in New-York.  All races of Americans have rightfully claimed a part of this glorious national enterprise, as all share in the bounties of a Federal victory – and the disappointments of a defeat.

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