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The early part of the summer here is very wet and disagreeable. For a long time we had a rain-storm every day, and often as many as from three to five in one day. By the last of August, this wet season seems to be about over. We now have fair weather most of the time. By the first of September, the planters have commenced gathering their cotton. Youngman,15 a recruit brought to the company, was discharged on September second. He enlisted, received a large bounty and drew pay for six months and during all of that time all he ever did was to answer to his name twice. He was a poor, helpless imbecile, who had always been subject to fits. He should have been sent to a charity hospital or poor-house instead of having been enlisted as a soldier. An army surgeon who would pass such a helpless being ought to be cashiered at once. On the eleventh day of September an order came for the muster-out papers for those whose three years expires, to be made out. According to date of enlistment papers the three years expired on August twenty-first; according to date of muster rolls on September fourth. As it will be some little time before all the necessary papers are made out and we reach Illinois to be discharged, we will probably make a good start into the fourth year before we reach home. CHAPTER XXXII. FROM NEW ORLEANS TO NEW YORK AND THENCE TO ILLINOIS. Saturday, September seventeenth, we were surprised by the sudden and unexpected orders to start at once for the North.1 A special train at once took us to Algiers. We immediately crossed the river to New Orleans. The reason for this sudden haste was this: a large number of Confederate prisoners were on hand and it was desired that we should guard them on the way to the North. We are to take the prisoners to New York and then go to our own State to be discharged. There are over one hundred soldiers of the Thirty-third whose time has now expired, who will go with us. On Sunday, September eighteenth, we embarked on the steam propeller, Cassandra.2 We had some three hundred prisoners. They were part of those - From New Orleans to New York, and Thence to Illinois. 263 captured at Fort Morgan. They were very well clothed and the best looking set of Confederate soldiers I have yet seen. As we took them through the streets from the prison to the ship, the Southern women came out to smile upon and wish the Confederate prisoners good-bye. This pleased the prisoners. We took the prisoners on board at three P. M. At five o’clock everything was ready and we steamed down the river. At sunrise Monday morning we passed from the river to the gulf through the Southwest Pass and then turned southeast and sailed toward Key West. We had a pleasant sail Monday and Tuesday. Toward night on Tuesday the wind began to rise and through the night and the next day we had a rough sea. Many of the boys became seasick. We reached Key West after dark Wednesday. We had one passenger and some mail to land. As the yellow fever is raging in Key West we did not wish to run into port and laid outside until Thursday morning . A small boat then took our passengers and the mail and we went on our way. At night we passed the last lighthouse we will see on the southern coast of Florida and turned to the north. The boys were greatly pleased when the boat commenced running to the north. It seems like going home when we can see the north star in our front. During our three years’ sojourn in the south, with danger and death for our daily companions, often, in the dark night march, and still more frequently during the lonely night guard, the only steadfast guide we could see and know was the ever faithful north star, always shining like a beacon light over our Northern homes. Thus the north star, always reminding us of Northern liberty and the land of our birth, has become to us soldiers of the North, a well-known friend and faithful guide, and with glad hearts we follow in the path it marks, knowing that every step taken, with its light in front, takes us nearer...

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