Sunday, 11th–We received orders to be ready to march early in the morning for Memphis. The report in camp is that we are to go on down the Mississippi river. The Fourth Brigade of the Third Division came in at 5 o’clock in the evening and relieved our brigade. A detail from the Eighty-first Illinois Infantry furnished the picket guards to relieve our post where I was on guard with Corporal McBirney and Privates John Esher and George Eicher, all of my company. We are all glad to leave this place, as it is low, damp and unhealthy, which with the smallpox makes it a bad camp.
Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.
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