Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, April 23, 1863

Headquarters Second Brig., Second Div.,
Fifteenth A. C,
Young's Point, La., April 23, 1863.
My Dear Mother:

By the enclosed order, you will see that I am virtually mustered out of the service. My regiment, by the accident and casuality of camp and bivouac, march and battle, having been reduced to less than one half of the maximum number prescribed by law. I only wait to be relieved from my command by order of the commanding general. The army is on the eve of what I consider a desperate enterprise. I believe the movement is forced by the folly and madness of politicians at home, (and by home I mean the pleasant places of safety far away from the bayou and the swamp, the slippery deck, the lonely picket,) to destroy the army or break down its leaders, which will be the same thing. I cannot fix the blame upon individuals, I do not speak from a sense of individual outrage. For a year past I have seen a splendid army crippled and its efforts rendered abortive by the insane policy of imbecile rulers. I foresee the loss of another year. The order alluded to will go farther to destroy the army than a campaign of five years with such soldiers as we have now trained.

What the course of the generals will be in my case, I do not know. I must go on, till an order comes relieving me from my command; of course in the field and anticipating an early engagement I cannot as a man of honor ask my discharge, which I have the right to claim forthwith. The order will be embarrassing. I do not propose to say what has passed between General Sherman, General Blair, and myself, regarding the matter. I had occasion the other day to test the temper of the soldiers. The whole division, three brigades and four batteries, were drawn up in hollow square to hear General Thomas announce the policy of the President. After he had concluded, General Sherman and General Blair, who were on the platform with him, followed with speeches, and as they had concluded, General Thomas invited the soldiers to call for whom they pleased. I think it would have done your heart good to hear some seven thousand voices ring out clear for Kilby Smith. There was no mistaking that sort of demonstration or the yell that greeted me as I mounted the platform. Still soldiers are fickle as the rest of mankind. To-morrow it may be somebody else, the pet of popular favor, to yield in his turn to his successor.

If I had the regiment alone, I would not hesitate a moment as to my course; with the brigade it is different and I must bide patiently. I had hoped to be brevetted, that chance is cut off. I have ceased to hope the appointment of brigadier-general. I have a '”heart for any fate.”

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 289-90

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