Occupied as usual upon Sundays. Filing Newspapers and reviewing the deficiencies of the week but my eyes prevented my devoting much attention to supplying them. In the afternoon I wrote a letter to Richardson1 and read a part of the last voyage of Captn. Cook. This 133is a new field to me and displays some of the most interesting fields for observation of which I can imagine, although heretofore it has been but little examined into. Evening with the family.

I performed my usual duties with very tolerable regularity. Wrote a letter to Abby. Nothing very particular occurred during the day.

Went through as usual today. I received a letter from Abby at Medford. Otherwise nothing of importance took place. No sign of existence from George for some time. In the evening I went to my Uncle Tom Johnson’s where we spent the evening.

After breakfast and before I had quite finished my Record, I was called upon to go with the ladies. They had formed a party to go with the Roberdeaus to Fort Washington.1 We went to Alexandria in the Carriage and from there to the Fort in the Barge belonging to it, having met Colonel Armistead2 and Mr. Geo. W. Slocum. The day was pleasant though warm. We reached the Fort in an hour, and a quarter. Having passed a few hours there and seen the Fort besides taking a little collation at the Colonel’s, we returned, and reached Washington at 8. Colonel Armistead has a pretty residence there and improved it with some taste; he seems to be a mild good sort of man. We saw some of the garrison Officers and their wives together with a Mr. Minor whose exact situation I could not discover. He was a Virginian, I discovered shortly from his allusions and his politics, which were not apparently consonant however to the reigning creed in that State. I was so tired and out of my usual tone that I was glad soon to retreat.

I performed my duties quite tolerably this morning and wrote a letter to Abby in the afternoon. Nothing else remarkable however occurred. This monotony of life, though very terrible in the journal, 134is a certain sign of the happiness which attends it. In the evening the ladies retired very early on account of fatigue.