The camp of the Fifteenth Army Corps, during this interlude of marching, lay along the Big Black River, between Jackson and Vicksburg, about twenty miles from the latter. It was acting as guard to all that region against any return movements or raids of the enemy. A glance at the map will show you the exact position. But there is a history of this and similar encampments which will never be written. In the sultry air and poisonous vapors of the Big Black, officers and men resorted to every possible resource for whiling away the dull hours and cheering the home-sick invalids. Not unfrequently, in the light of the evening-lamps, the commander-in-chief has amused and interested by the hour a circle of officers gathered about him, with the narratives of his early adventures, presenting, with the vividness of reality, the exciting life among the Indians of Florida and the gold-seekers of California. But one day there was an unusual stir around the General’s headquarters; for visitors worth more to him than all earthly honors or gold were escorted to his tent, his wife and his son, bearing his own name, had come from their western home, to meet him once more before his long and perilous marches over hostile soil. But the hours of domestic converse and delight flew swiftly by, the farewells were spoken, and the well-guarded visitors went on their homeward way. There was no safeguard against disease lurking in those Southern swamps. The gifted and beautiful boy, unconsciously to all, had been smitten, and a raging fever soon laid him at the gate of death. He had been adopted by the Thirteenth Corps as their pet—a compliment both to him and his father, who was himself the idol of those brave battalions. How this bereavement affected him and his old veterans, you will know hereafter.