71
	The Occupation of Big Bethel.
in Philadelphia.   He�s a bad lot, generally.
  27.  Thursday.   A note from Brigham an-
nouncing a reconnoisance in force to take place to-
day, to and beyond Big Bethel, for the purpose of
occupying it.    The writer joined us at breakfast.
Hither and thither.      Set off on horseback by 10 �,
Hall having preceded on foot.              Crossing the
bridge at Hampton fell in with a party of officers
en route.       Joined a Capt. Freese, an ex-judge
and present provost of Camp Hamilton.     A lovely
day, sunny and breezy as we galloped onwards,
through the pines, the localities of last years skir-
mishes being pointed out by Freese.   Among them
was the spot where Rawlings� brother got shot; his
party being out merely on a drunken spree, Freese
added.      Soldiers.     Overtook Heintzelman and
staff.       Riding onwards.     Bethel.     A wooden church,
lines of red earthworks apparently evacuated by
the enemy over night.   A chat with Heintzelman
and a drink with Johnson.        I was crumbling part
of a tobacco leaf, dried though culled from the road-
side, for smoking, when Hunt perceived
some horses in a field and cried out a general in-
vitation to their capture.   So I gallopped too, but
nothing was effected, the steeds making off.  On
again.      A visit to a farm-house where I obtained
a drink of milk and where the shabby mistress
of two or three negroes had an old Richmond