Friday.
Dear Eliza: We got off our first trunk of Hospital supplies for Colonel Mansfield Davies’ Regiment yesterday and feel today as if we were quite at leisure. You have no idea of the number of last things there were to do, or the different directions we had to go in, to do them. Mr. Davies came in at breakfast yesterday, in his regimentals, quite opportunely, to tell us what to do with the trunk. It went down to his headquarters at 564 Broadway and thence by steamer to Fort Schuyler for the sick soldiers there. Charley and Ned drove out there yesterday afternoon from Astoria to see the drill, and saw the box safely landed within the walls. It was the old black ark which you and G. had in Beyrout, Syria, marked with a capital H, which now answers for Hospital. There were in it as follows–for you may be curious to know:–
42 shirts,
2 drawers,
6 calico gowns,
24 pairs woolen socks, .
24 pairs slippers,
24 pocket handkerchiefs,
18 pillow sacks,
36 pillow-cases,
18 damask napkins,
36 towels,
24 sponges,
4 boxes of lint,
beside old linen, oiled silk, tape, thread, pins, scissors, wax, books (Hedley Vicars and the like), ribbon, cloth, etc., and fifty bandages.
This morning Mother has been putting up a tin box of stores for Mr. Davies – sardines, potted meats, arrow root, chocolate, guava and the like, with a box of cologne, a jar of prunes and a morocco case with knife, fork and spoon, fine steel and double plated, “ just out “ for army use. Lots more. The box, a square cracker box, holds as much in its way as the trunk. I am glad you are in the library at last. You will grow accustomed to it and find it pleasanter even than the dining-room.