Well, Livy darling, we are working along down, slowly, landing every 2 or 3 miles, & having a most serene & enjoyable time. Osgood says he has never enjoyed any trip more. We were 6 hours & a quarter coming 23 miles, this morning, because we made so many landings. We are only 70 miles above Vicksburg, now, (where we stop,) but we shall be 12 or 14 hours making it.

I had myself called at 4 o’clock this morning, & came on with the morning watch. There was just a faint whitish suggestion in the east—the rest of the sky & the great river were wrapped in a sombre gloom. It was fascinating to see the day steal gradulally upon this vast silent world; & when the edge of the shorn sun pushed itself above the line of forest, the marvels of shifting light & shade & color & dappled reflections, that followed, were bewitching to see. And the luxurious green walls of forest! & the jutting leafy capes! & the paling green of the far stretches! & the remote, shadowy, vanishing distances, away down the glistening highway under the horizon! and the riot of the singing birds!——it was all worth getting up for, I tell you. After this, I shall cease from rising at half past five, while on the river, & get up every morning at 4. (Been going to bed at 11 & 12 & rising at 5.30 & 6.)

Our present plan is to stay in Vicksburg all day tomorrow, & then go on to New Orleans—remain there a week & then go th Ⓐemendation straight through to St. Louis on the great steamer “Baton Rouge,” which is commanded by Horace Bixby, who taught me the river, & to whom I owed & paid absolute obedience during a year & a half.

Good-bye for today, sweetheart—I’m getting pretty anxious for the letters I shall get at Vicksburg tomorrow morning. I love you, darling.