Thursday, May 29, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, December 14, 1862

CAMP ON WOLF RIVER, NEAR MEMPHIS, Dec. 14, 1862.

The papers, I suppose, have told you what we have been about. My regiment was the first to cross the Tallahatchie. We have marching orders for the 18th, four days to rest and get ready, and then for Vicksburg or Jackson, or what God pleases. We shall have an active winter campaign. My health has been good until within a day or two. I have recurrence of the infernal dysentery. I suppose the dampness in some way strikes upon my bowels, and I could get no brandy. Whiskey, and very bad whiskey at that, is all we can procure in the army, and it is my abomination.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 249

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