2
--
about 500 lbs. each.  The officers who were sent out to burn the cotton,
told the owners that the Confederate government would pay for all the cotton
burned!  We expected when we left the Cape to have some pretty tall fighting
between that place + this, if we succeeding in getting through at all, as
we understood there was about 2000 or 2500 troops scattered along at different
points along our route.  But with the exception of 3 or 4 skirmishes, we
have had no fun at all.  The country through which we came, was full of conscipts,
but they were all new troops, but partially organized, and poorly armed,
and could not be prevailed upon to "face the music," They all fled
back into the bottoms as we approached.  We have taken a good many of their
officers, prisoners, and I think our trip here will have the effect to break
up entirely, a good many companies that were partially formed, and I am satisfied
that if the Col. would exclude negroes entirely from the camp, and have nothing
whatever to do with them, that our march through this portion of Ark. would
have a good effect.  The course he is pursuing however in receiving all that
come and refusing to give them up is irritating the people wonderfully, and
whether it will result favorably or otherwise, is a serious question.  But
enough upon the nigger question, you know my views upon this subject, and
can judge how my present employment, so far as this feature of it is concerned,
must grind upon my feelings.  My hearth for the last 6 or 8 days has not
been quite as good as usual, I have been slightly troubled with the diarrhea,
a very common trouble in this climate, during