Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, March 31, 1862

HEADQUARTERS OF 54TH REGT. O. V. U. S. A.,
CAMP SH1LOH, TENNESSEE, March 31, 1862.

We have not yet had the good fortune to meet the enemy. I have made, in connection with Generals Sherman and Stuart, various reconnoitres, and day before yesterday we were just on the heels of a body of cavalry, but they managed to elude our forces. As I mentioned to you in a former letter, there is a large army concentrating at this point, where, I suppose, will be congregated a force of an hundred and forty thousand. The enemy are in force at Corinth, some seventeen miles distant. Our men are fast becoming acclimated, and are becoming restored to their wonted health and vigor. As I said before, my own health is most excellent, and I am really insensible to fatigue, at least on horseback. It is no unusual thing for me to be eight or ten hours on the stretch in the saddle. If the spring and summer heats do not overcome me, I am sure I shall derive benefit from the campaign. I desire continually to assure you of my safety, and to pray you to disabuse your mind of apprehension of danger to me either from ill-health or the casualties of an engagement, the latter are of the most trivial character; there is not one chance in a thousand of my being scathed.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 191

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