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4 1JANUARY 1864, FRIDAY I DID NOT ATTEND THE RECEPTION TODAY, LABORING ALL THE morning under a great disgust. I left Willards yesterday & went to live at Club today.l JANUARY 1864, SATURDAy-MONDAY] Point Lookout The President and Secretary ofWar today Jan. 2, 1864 commissioned me to go down to Lookout Point and deliver to Gen. Marston the bookofoaths and the accompanying blanks and explain to him the mode in which they are to be used. Gen Butler was ordered by telegraph to meet me there and consult as to the manner of carrying out the Presidents plan for pardon- , ing and enlisting the repentant rebels. I bore a letter for Gen. Butler's instruction .2 I went on board a little tug at the 7th Street wharf, and rattled and rustled through the ice to Alexandria where I got on board the Clyde most palatial ofsteam tugs: fitted up with a very pretty cabin and berths heated by steam and altogether sybaritic in its appointments. The day was bitterly cold and the wind was malignant on the Potomac. I shut myself up in my gorgeous little cabin and scribbled and read and slept all day. The Captain thought best to lay to for a while in the night, so we put in at Smith's creek and arrived at Point Lookout in the early morning . I went to the headquarters ofthe General accompanied by a young officer who asked my name & got it. I felt little interest in his patronymic & it is now gone into the oblivion of those ante Agamemnona. It was so cold that nobody was stiring. A furry horse was crouching by the wall. "Hello Billy! Cold, Aint it?" said my companion Billy was indignantly silent. We 137 INSIDE LINCOLN'S WHITE HOUSE stumbled on, over the frozen ground, past the long line of cottages that line the beach built bythe crazy proprietor ofthe land who hoped to make here a great wateringplace which would draw the beauty & fashion of the country away from Gape May Long Branch & make Newport a Ram des Vaches. We came up to a snug looking frame house, which had been the dwelling of the adventurous lunatic. A tall young man with enormous blond mustaches and a general up-too-early air about him, hove in sight and my guide & friend introduced me. "Yes 1have heard of you Ml' Hale. I got a despatch from the General saying you would be here. When did you arrive Mr. Kay? Rather cold weather. Anyice on the River Mr. Day?"All this in a voice like the rumbling of distant thunder, measured & severe, and with a manner of preternatural solemnity. "The General will soon be up Mr Hayes" my mild insinuations as to my agnomen having brought him that near to my christening, at last. He disappeared and coming back, beckoned me out. I followed him across the little entry into a room opposite. There stood in the attitude in which if Comfort ever were deified the statues should be posed-parted coat-tails-a broad plenilunar base exposed to the grateful warmth ofthe pine wood fire-a hearty Yankee gentleman, clean shaven-smug and rosy-to whom I was presented & who said laconically, "Sit there," pointing to a warm seat by a well spread breakfast table. 1 had an appetite engendered by a day and night of river air and I ate breakfast, till the intelligent contraband who served us caught the infection and plied me with pork steaks till hunger cried quarter. The General told a good yarn on a contraband soldier who complained of a white man abusing him. "I doesnt objick to de pussonal cuffin, but he must speck de unicorn:' The General's flock are a queer lot. Dirty, ragged, yet jolly. Most ofthem are still rebellious but many are tired and ready to quit while some are actuated by a fierce desire to get out ofthe prison and by going into,our army avenge the wrongs of their forced service in the rebel ral1ks.3 They are great traders. A stray onion-a lucky treasure-trove of a piece of coal-is a capital for extensive operations in Confederate trash. They sell and gamble away their names with utter recklessness. They have the easy carelessness of a Frenchman about their patronymics. They sell their names when drawn for a detail to work, a great prize in the monotonous life ofevery day. A smallpox patient sells his place 011 the sick list to a...

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