" Such is the brief record left by
John Rolfe, whose name is honorably associated with that of Pocahontas.
This was the first importation of the kind into the country, and the
source of existing strifes. It was fitting that the system which from
that slave-ship had been spreading over the continent for nearly two
centuries and a half should yield for the first time to the logic of
military law almost upon the spot of its origin. The coincidence may not
inappropriately introduce what of experience and reflection the writer
has to relate of a three-months' soldier's life in Virginia.
On the morning of the 22d of May last, Major-General Butler, welcomed
with a military salute, arrived at Fortress Monroe, and assumed the
command of the Department of Virginia. Hitherto we had been hemmed up in
the peninsula of which the fort occupies the main part, and cut off from
communication with the surrounding country. Until within a few days our
forces consisted of about one thousand men belonging to the Third and
Fourth Regiments of Massachusetts militia, and three hundred regulars.
The only movement since our arrival on the 20th of April had been
the expedition to Norfolk of the Third Regiment, in which it was
my privilege to serve as a private.
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