On the third floor were about two hundred sailors and marines, taken in the gallant but luckless assault upon the ruins of Fort Sumter, in the September previous.  They retained the discipline of the ship in their quarters, kept themselves trim and clean, and their floor as white as a ship’s deck.  They did not court the society of the “sojers” below, whose camp ideas of neatness differed from theirs.  A few old barnacle-backs always sat on guard around the head of the steps leading from the lower rooms.  They chewed tobacco enormously, and kept their mouths filled with the extracted juice.  Any luckless “sojer” who attempted to ascend the stairs usually returned in haste, to avoid the deluge of the filthy liquid.

For convenience in issuing rations we were divided into messes of twenty, each mess electing a Sergeant as its head, and each floor electing a Sergeant-of-the-Floor, who drew rations and enforced what little discipline was observed.

Though we were not so neat as the sailors above us, we tried to keep our quarters reasonably clean, and we washed the floor every morning; getting down on our knees and rubbing it clean and dry with rags.  Each mess detailed a man each day to wash up the part of the floor it occupied, and he had to do this properly or no ration would be given him.  While the washing up was going on each man stripped himself and made close examination of his garments for the body-lice, which otherwise would have increased beyond control.  Blankets were also carefully hunted over for these “small deer.”

About eight o’clock a spruce little lisping rebel named Ross would appear with a book, and a body-guard, consisting of a big Irishman, who had the air of a Policeman, and carried a musket barrel made into a cane.  Behind him were two or three armed guards.  The Sergeant-of-the-Floor commanded: 

“Fall in in four ranks for roll-call.”

We formed along one side of the room; the guards halted at the head of the stairs; Ross walked down in front and counted the files, closely followed by his Irish aid, with his gun-barrel cane raised ready for use upon any one who should arouse his ruffianly ire.  Breaking ranks we returned to our places, and sat around in moody silence for three hours.  We had eaten nothing since the previous noon.  Rising hungry, our hunger seemed to increase in arithmetical ratio with every quarter of an hour.

These times afforded an illustration of the thorough subjection of man to the tyrant Stomach.  A more irritable lot of individuals could scarcely be found outside of a menagerie than these men during the hours waiting for rations.  “Crosser than, two sticks” utterly failed as a comparison.  They were crosser than the lines of a check apron.  Many could have given odds to the traditional bear with a sore head, and run out of the game fifty points ahead of him.  It was astonishingly easy to get up a fight at these times.  There was no need