_Tuesday, October 1._--One o'clock A. M. Orders arrived to return immediately to Seneca Mills. The left section marched at once, arriving towards daybreak. At sunrise, the fifth gun went on picket duty once more. Lieut. Newton, Sergeants Hammond and Read, were with the left section. Commenced to throw up intrenchments during the night.
_Thursday, October 3._--Left the picket line again, returned to Camp Jackson, started for Darnestown by six o'clock, and arrived there by eight o'clock P. M. Thus ended our stay at Seneca Mills, the most pleasant period of our three years service. Vegetables and fruit, chickens and pigs, were plenty, for we owned the whole plantation of that old rebel Peters, who was sent to Fort Lafayette for treason. The Thirty-fourth New York, having the picket line on the river, always proved good companions. The view of the surrounding country is really imposing, including Sugar Loaf Mountain, the natural observatory of the signal corps. Some remarkable items must not be forgotten--for instance, novel songs of "The Nice Legs;" "Jimmy Nutt's Measuring the Guard Time by the Moon;" "Griffin's Apple Sauce," and "Doughnuts for Horses."
_Sunday, October 6._--Camp at Darnestown. The battery received three new guns in the afternoon. Lieut. J. G. Hassard, having joined our battery, at Darnestown, commanded the right section as First Lieutenant. Company cooking was introduced by him. Before that, every detachment done its own cooking. The enterprise itself, of cooking for the whole company, and the selling of a part of the rations, for raising a company fund, would have been well enough, but the management was extremely poor. Some days we fared well; on other days there would be no dinner, but a detestable bacon soup, hardly fit for hogs. We were told that the government rations would not admit of a dinner every day. But what good did it do then to sell rations, under the pretext of raising a company fund? This is a question which never could nor never will be satisfactorily explained by those who started it.
_Monday, October 7._--Capt. Tompkins very suddenly marched off to Harper's Ferry, with the right section. Thunder storm in the evening.
_Friday, October 11._--A new lieutenant for our battery arrived to-day. Jeffrey Hassard, our First Lieutenant's brother.