become so cold we have had to take the cook in the house, which makes eleven.  This boy outsnores creation, beating anything you ever heard; he woke me up last night, and I thought it was the dog Cadet barking outside at the door.

“If you get this before ma sends off the expected-to-be-sent package, and if there is some room, you might put in one blanket.  Since we sleep two in a bunk, we spread our blankets across the bunk.  Brunet has three, and I have three, which makes it equal to six apiece.  Send the blanket; it shall do its share of warming, I assure you.  I suppose what ma sends will be my share of Christmas in New Orleans.  Our turkeys look droopy, and there is no telling when they will peg out.  We keep the gobbler’s spirits up by making him fight.  The camp is full of turkeys, and we make ours fight every day. I have plenty of clothes and socks:  I have over half a dozen of woollen socks.

  “The Gopher Mess send their best regards.

  “Yours affectionately,

  “Co.  A, ORLEANS CADETS,

  “Louisiana Battalion, Williamsburg, Virginia.”

The formation of Fenner’s Louisiana Battery was attended by tremendous difficulties and discouragements, patiently met, nobly overcome, by the gallant officer who found himself at last at the head of a company composed of men who, whether considered in the aggregate, or as individuals, had not their superiors in the Confederate armies,—­intelligently brave, enthusiastic, patriotic, gentlemen by birth, breeding, and education, whom chivalrous devotion to duty forbade to murmur at any hardship which fell to their lot.  As officers or private soldiers, looking to the future of the Confederacy as to something assured; never despairing, ready to follow wherever and whenever a “hope” was led, no matter how “forlorn.”

The record of this little band of devoted patriots has never been thoroughly known or understood as it deserves to be.  Only once has its history appeared in print,—­upon the occasion of a reunion of the command held in New Orleans, May 12, 1884.  With great pride I transfer to these pages part of an article which then appeared in the Times-Democrat of that date: 

“As the term of service (twelve months) of the corps began to approach its end, Captain Charles E. Fenner, commanding the company of Louisiana Guards, conceived the idea of raising a battery of artillery.  He had no difficulty in getting the men, a sufficient number volunteering at once from the battalion, but he encountered other most disheartening obstacles.  The War Department had not the means of equipping the artillery companies already in service, and authorized to be raised, and he could only obtain the authority to raise this battery on condition of furnishing his own armament of guns.  He succeeded, however, in making arrangements with his friends in New Orleans to furnish the guns, and the battery had been made and was ready for him in New Orleans, when the city fell, and it was captured.