Thursday, 19th–I was off duty today and went to town to have my likeness taken.[1]
We now have five hundred negroes at work cutting the levee at Lake Providence, and Captain Elrod of the Thirteenth Iowa has about one hundred negroes at work picking cotton–last year’s crop left in the field.
[1] Upon inquiring of Mr. Downing how he came to have his “likeness” taken twice so close together (see Feb. 7), he laughingly confessed that it was not because the first was not a good picture, but because it was not a proper picture. Said he, “To tell the truth, I had it taken dressed in a major’s uniform, and it wouldn’t have been safe to let it be seen.” He destroyed it and had another taken.—Ed.