In the early morning of February second we crossed the bar and noted well that line stretching far to the right and left of us, drawn with almost mathematical exactness, which marked the demarcation between the clear waters of the Gulf and the turbid waters of the Mississippi. In going up the river the buckets were constantly dropped into the muddy stream, and their contents, when allowed to stand for a few minutes, would soon furnish an abundance of that luxury we all craved so much,--clear water, cooled by the ice and snows of the far north. Reaching the inhabited portions of the river, we saw the planters busy with their spring work, and though the air was chilled with the icy breath of northern climes, the orange trees in blossom and the green shrubbery on the shores, gave indication of the semi-tropical climate we had reached. Arriving at New Orleans in due season, our senior captain reported for orders. I must not pause to speak of the strange scenes which greeted our eyes in this, the most cosmopolitan city of our land. A delay here of two or three days proved almost as demoralizing as a campaign, and I, for one, was glad when the orders came to move. For reasons that afterwards transpired, we dropped down the stream some fifteen miles to a point called English Turn. It derived its name, as I remember the tradition, from the fact that as the commander of some English vessel was slowly making his way up what was then an unknown and perhaps unexplored body of water, he was met by some French explorer, coming from the opposite direction, who gave him to understand that all the country he had seen in coming up the river, was, by prior discovery, the rightful possession of the French monarch. Though no Frenchman had perhaps seen it, yet with his facile tongue he worked persuasion in the mind of the bluff Englishman, who at this point, turned about and put out to sea--hence its name, English Turn. We found here relics of very early times in the form of an old earthwork, and an angle of a brick wall, built, when, and whether by French or Spaniard, none could tell. Here we soon selected a site and laid out our camp. The time rapidly passed in the busy occupations which each day brought, in little excursions into the surrounding country, in conversations with the colored people whose sad memories of the old slavery days recalled so vividly the experiences of Uncle Tom and his associates in Mrs. Stowe's famous tale. Nor were the days unvaried by plenty of fun. Music, vocal and instrumental, we had in abundance. The mimic talents of our men, led to the performance of a variety of entertainments, and in their happy-go-easy dispositions, their troubles set very lightly on them. Their extravagancies of expression were by no means an unremarkable feature. When I at first heard their threats to each other, couched sometimes in the most diabolical language, I had deemed it my duty at once to rush into the company street and prevent what, among white