In June, 1840, after the final examination, the class graduated and we received our diplomas.  Meantime, Major Delafield, United States Engineers, had become Superintendent; Major C. F. Smith, Commandant of Cadets; but the corps of professors and assistants remained almost unchanged during our whole term.  We were all granted the usual furlough of three months, and parted for our homes, there to await assignment to our respective corps and regiments.  In due season I was appointed and commissioned second-lieutenant, Third Artillery, and ordered to report at Governor’s Island, New York Harbor, at the end of September.  I spent my furlough mostly at Lancaster and Mansfield, Ohio; toward the close of September returned to New York, reported to Major Justin Dimock, commanding the recruiting rendezvous at Governor’s Island, and was assigned to command a company of recruits preparing for service in Florida.  Early in October this company was detailed, as one of four, to embark in a sailing-vessel for Savannah, Georgia, under command of Captain and Brevet Major Penrose.  We embarked and sailed, reaching Savannah about the middle of October, where we transferred to a small steamer and proceeded by the inland route to St. Augustine, Florida.  We reached St. Augustine at the same time with the Eighth Infantry, commanded by Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General William J. Worth.  At that time General Zachary Taylor was in chief command in Florida, and had his headquarters at Tampa Bay.  My regiment, the Third Artillery, occupied the posts along the Atlantic coast of Florida, from St. Augustine south to Key Biscayne, and my own company, A, was at Fort Pierce, Indian River.  At St. Augustine I was detached from the company of recruits, which was designed for the Second Infantry, and was ordered to join my proper company at Fort Pierce.  Colonel William Gates commanded the regiment, with Lieutenant William Austine Brown as adjutant of the regiment.  Lieutenant Bragg commanded the post of St. Augustine with his own company, E, and G (Garner’s), then commanded by Lieutenant Judd.  In, a few days I embarked in the little steamer William Gaston down the coast, stopping one day at New Smyrna, held by John R. Vinton’s company (B), with which was serving Lieutenant William H. Shover.

In due season we arrived off the bar of Indian River and anchored.  A whale-boat came off with a crew of four men, steered by a character of some note, known as the Pilot Ashlock.  I transferred self and baggage to this boat, and, with the mails, was carried through the surf over the bar, into the mouth of Indian River Inlet.  It was then dark; we transferred to a smaller boat, and the same crew pulled us up through a channel in the middle of Mangrove Islands, the roosting-place of thousands of pelicans and birds that rose in clouds and circled above our heads.  The water below was alive with fish, whose course through it could be seen by the phosphoric wake; and Ashlock told me many a tale of the Indian