After breakfast and before I had quite finished my Record, I was called upon to go with the ladies. They had formed a party to go with the Roberdeaus to Fort Washington.1 We went to Alexandria in the Carriage and from there to the Fort in the Barge belonging to it, having met Colonel Armistead2 and Mr. Geo. W. Slocum. The day was pleasant though warm. We reached the Fort in an hour, and a quarter. Having passed a few hours there and seen the Fort besides taking a little collation at the Colonel’s, we returned, and reached Washington at 8. Colonel Armistead has a pretty residence there and improved it with some taste; he seems to be a mild good sort of man. We saw some of the garrison Officers and their wives together with a Mr. Minor whose exact situation I could not discover. He was a Virginian, I discovered shortly from his allusions and his politics, which were not apparently consonant however to the reigning creed in that State. I was so tired and out of my usual tone that I was glad soon to retreat.