There I halted him, as a matter of course, and let him know our Indiana company was raised in that identical place. He made a good many anxious inquiries, but I was not enough acquainted in that city to give him any satisfactory information. He afterwards spoke of Havana, Ill., and said he had practiced medicine in that town. He was greatly surprised when I told him our company was from Havana, Mason County, Ill., and he was acquainted with a good many of the boys as I named them over. I bolted off for the company and sent up Boggs, who was much surprised to hear that his father’s old partner was a prisoner in our hands. Papers of the 7th came in this evening, bringing enthusiastic accounts of a great battle and victory of Gen. Meade’s army over the Rebs under their gallant General at Gettysburg. Gen. Meade’s dispatches proclaim a great victory and the utter rout of the Rebs, with heavy losses of prisoners and colors. A boat came up from Port Hudson this evening, bringing news of the surrender of the place and garrison. Hurrah for Banks! JULY 12. Sunday. After dinner, roll call. I mounted a mule which the boys had caught and saddled, and started for town. The place is very quiet. At the wharf you can see transports as far as the eye can reach in either direction. The river is quite low. I came around the Rebel works and in coming back was surprised to see so little artillery commanding the river. Only four guns and one mortar, and a one hundred and twenty-eight pounder, manufactured in Richmond, Va. In the land defenses from the river to the English Whitworth gun there are twenty-six pieces, making in all from Fort Hill around to town fifty-nine guns. Most of the troops have gone to the rear and there is less than an army corps here at the present. JULY 13. Monday. Our forces in the rear are gradually closing up and skirmishing near Jackson. JULY 14. Tuesday. The paymaster is here, working on the pay rolls and quarterly returns. JULY 15. Wednesday. A heavy detail from our regiment was dispatched to work on Fort Hill today. They are gradually changing the looks of that once important fort, from a rude, unshapely mass of dirt to large neat and substantial works. This afternoon our boys, in filling up the hole made by the blast, dug out a number of bodies. They had been crowded into the hole and covered up. Heavy details are at work repairing the old line of Reb works, also in filling up and destroying our old ones. The famous covered way from the White House to Fort Hill is nearly destroyed. It seems too bad to destroy the works that we spent weeks of hard labor and exposure to construct. It seems to us that they should stand as monuments for future generations to look upon, but still we have implicit confidence in the good judgment of Gen. Grant.