153
                     To Baton Rouge.
9 at Baton Rouge, where, disembarking I
was incontinently collared by an Irish lieute-
nant, on the watch for an expected gambler
and spy.    With Hills and Shaw to an house
opposite the office of the Provost-Marshal�s.  I
go off alone to the residence of that officer, Capt.
Seamans, and find him in his dressing gown,
after breakfast.    I retail the Galveston and
New Orleans� news and am invited to dinner.
Enter a Mr Kahn, the owner of the house, who
has come up with us on board the Laurel Hill.
Also, presently, a Mr Mann, who owns a hand-
some house adjoining, but has quitted it, with
his family, for a residence on the other side of
the river, half a mile up.   He came to Seamans
saying that if a fight occurred in his new vi-
cinity he should prefer moving, so that his 
house might not intervene between the enemy
and the shells of the Essex.   Seamans reassu-
ring him he left, before dinner.    After the meal,
a bottle of champagne and cigars.  Seamans as-
signed Mann�s big house, next door, to me as
quarters.   Visiting it I found it a roomy one,
with plenty of mattresses and some furniture.
Returning to where I had left Hills and Shaw,
I found Howell, who told me that things were
dull enough at Baton Rouge, only they expected
some demonstration against Port Hudson soon.