Was sitting on my bunk killing time. It was pouring outside, when I heard the sudden hurry in the barracks which always denotes that a large detail is going out. “In five minutes at the latest.” Now I did not have to be told that I was on that detail for I had been idling around for three days. My blanket roll was packed so it did not take long to prepare. Fifty men under Lieut. O[akes]. was the detail. Were loaded on to flat cars with Chinos laborers, where we learned that the niggers were taking up the track near Calumpit. Steamed down the track about six miles, where we found the break but no niggers, some rails had been taken out and the road bed dug up, but the enemy, 300 (estimated), had been driven off by a detachment of the 6th Artillery, who got there first from Calumpit. Leaving the Chinos to repair the track we pushed down the track to Calumpit, three miles further down, and made our headquarters in the empty freight house. Took all the blinds from the station to sleep on. Coffee and hard tack, canned corned beef and then details were sent up and down the track. Curious sensation walking down the track in the pitchy darkness with a detail of four or five men, knowing there are 300 insurgents in the neighborhood who are anxious to shoot you and who may be laying behind the next clump of cane or behind the rice paddies for all you know. Was out twice during the night, 1o to 12 and 4 to 6 A.M. Nothing happened except a few scares, no shots.
