Lieut. Jacob Swartzlander Camp of 104th Regt. P.V.
Kalarama Heights
Saturday Evening Nov.9th.1861

Dear Cousin Han,
            I embrace the present oppor
tunity to write you the history of our journey
to the city of Washington, but before doing so
I shall tell you about the doings of last night and to-
day in camp. We had our tents pitched yester-
day and slept in them last night. I heard a
great deal of firing some time after midnight
it was not a great ways off I do not think, I
expected to hear the long roll beat every minute
but I was disappointed and so I laid still.
We would have been in a pretty situation if we
had been attacked by the rebels for we have
not had any ammunition since we have
been in camp, but we are surrounded by
other regiments and I suppose we are perfect-
ly safe. This fore-noon we had company drill
as usual, and at noon it commenced to rain
and continued on all of the afternoon making
our camp very muddy. This evening 8 horse
loads of provisions came to our camp which
looks as though we were going to stay here some
time. We have the old camp fare now hard
bread, flitch, mess beef and coffee. The band is
now playing sacred music, practising for church

---