HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGIMENT
O. V. INF.,
1ST DIVISION OF THE
EXPEDITION OF THE TENNESSEE,
ENCAMPED NEAR PITTSBURG,
TENN.
MY DEAR MOTHER:
I am as safe here as I should be in New York or in
Cincinnati; the same kind Providence is over me. My command has been much
harassed with marching and countermarching and rapid movements from place to
place, coupled with confinement on steamboat, which has tended to produce
sickness; but my own health is good. As evidence of this fact, I may say that
yesterday the division under General Sherman, of which our brigade forms a
part, made a very extended reconnoissance, driving in the enemy's pickets; that
I was compelled to rise at four o'clock in the morning, and, mounting at five,
rode at the head of my regiment for fourteen hours without dismounting save to
change horses; that I did not lie down till after twelve o'clock, and that I
rose this morning at five, and now at nine do not feel any ill effects. This
has been the longest and most hurried march we have yet made.
We shall have a very large army here, as will probably the
rebels, who will concentrate their forces at Corinth, a point on the railroad
some seventeen miles off. The army here is now under the general command of
Gen. Charles F. Smith, whom you may recollect in Washington; either his wife or
daughter, I suppose his wife, was somewhat celebrated in social circles as Mrs.
Fanny Smith. Ada, I suppose, will recollect her. He is very distinguished here
as a soldier, and was the hero of Fort Donaldson. The immediate division, of
which my command forms a part, is under General Sherman, and I am brigaded
under the command of Colonel Stuart, who ranks me, but I am second in command
to him. He is David Stuart of Michigan, who represented the Detroit District in
Congress during the Pierce Administration. The commander-in-chief of the department
is General Halleck. Letters will reach me directed to the 54th Regt. O. V.
Inf., Second Brigade, First Division of the Expedition to Tennessee, via Cairo
or Paducah, Ky.
We are in the midst of the cotton-growing region, but the
upland is sterile, and the climate apparently the same as in Cincinnati. The
people are a strange compound of extreme ignorance with very considerable
refinement of manner and conversation. They are all, without any exception I
have yet found, "secesh," and look upon the "Yanks," as
they call all people from the North, with not only aversion, but a "holy
horror." I feel almost convinced that we are a distinct people, that
re-union is well-nigh impossible.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 191-3
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