Headquarters Dept. Of The Tenn.,
Vicksburg, Sept. 20, 1863.
Mail of this morning brings your congratulations. I have
been so long a brigadier that the mere rank added makes but little difference
in my feelings.
I wrote you yesterday, urging you to write to General Grant;
a few minutes since he showed me your letter to him of even date with mine,
eloquent and well expressed, but brief. You must write to him more at length.
In my judgment he will be confined to his bed for a long time with his injury.
Such letters as you could write would interest him more than you can well
imagine. . . .
I must tell you an incident which occurred to me the other
day, before I went to New Orleans. The city of Natchez had sent up a delegation
to wait upon General Grant, who turned them over to me. I was to escort them
around the fortifications, and the General gave the principal man, the mayor,
his war-horse to ride — a splendid cream-colored stallion, a little vicious. I
was riding Bell, a horse you have never seen, but confessed the finest horse in
the army, East or West; all have said so who have seen him — a large powerful
brown or mahogany bay, great in battle, one who will yield the right of way to
none. Well, we were riding in a very narrow gorge, the mayor had dismounted to
lead his horse over a bad place, being in advance of me, when all at once he
turned and a terrific conflict took place between the two horses. I seized the
bridle of the General's, endeavoring to manage both; at the same moment mine
reared straight upon his hind legs. I dismounted in the expectation that he
would fall upon me, and as I touched the ground fell. Then these two great
stallions, full of fire and fury, fought over my prostrate body, their hoofs struck
together and each trampled within an inch of my head all around and over me. I
lay still as if I had been in bed; I knew my hour had not yet come. My own
horse was the first to perceive my danger; he retired a little from regard to
me. Those who were by were speechless and horror-stricken. I rose unharmed,
mounted and rode forward. I have never been in greater peril of my fife. God
watches me in calm and in storm.
My old regiment wanted to make me a present of a saddle and
bridle, and I am told raised in a few moments $975 for that purpose, and the
thing was to be extended to sword, sash, pistols, everything complete.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 337-8
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