Walnut Hills, Near Vicksburg, Miss., May 30, 1863.
My Darling:
I have carried your last letter, 26th April, in my breast
pocket close to my heart for many a day with intent to answer; it is quite
yellow with the damp of rain and night dews, and what had well-nigh been bloody
sweat, for it has been with me on the long marches and on the hard-fought
fields. But thanks to your prayers, I am spared this glorious moonlight night
to answer it.
I do not think, my dear daughter, that you read Schiller
yet. Do you know you quote him almost verbatim to me? You say you think “I must
be tired of war and drilling soldiers.” You might have gone on and written “the
camp's stir and crowd and ceaseless larum, the neighing war-horse, the
air-shattering trumpet, the unvaried, still returning, hour of duty, word of
command and exercise of arms,” and then a little further —
"O! day thrice lovely! when he becomes
A fellow man among his fellow men,
The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade
Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark!
Now the soft peace march beats, home, brothers, home;
The caps and helmets are all garlanded
With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields;
The City gates fly open of themselves,
They need no longer the petard to tear them;
The ramparts are all filled with men and women;
With peaceful men and women that send onwards
Kisses and welcomings upon the air,
Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures;
From all the towers rings out the merry peal,
The joyous vespers of a bloody day.
O! happy man, O! fortunate! for whom
The well-known door, the faithful arms are open,
The faithful, tender arms with mute embracing."
Yes, daughter, most gladly would I give the “blood-stained
laurel for the first violet of the leafless spring,” plucked in those quiet
fields where you are wandering. You give a beautiful description of your new
home. Well you may say “Alabama.” I must tell you the circumstance from which
that State derived its name. According to tradition, a tribe of Indians, driven
southward by the advance of civilization, after many weeks of toilsome march,
one day at sunset reached a lovely country, a sanctuary, unviolated by the
remorseless white man, on the banks of a broad, calmly flowing river, where
their canoes might ply, as they hoped, unmolested for ages, in the skirts of a
forest where the deer were sporting like tame kids. The chief struck the pole
of his tent into the earth, exclaiming, “Alabama! Alabama!” (here we rest).
Maybe, if I live, I shall come where you are, some day, to rest a little while,
to lie still in the cool halls and have you read to me, or sing to me, bathe my
furrowed brow or smooth away my sunburned hair. A little while to rest would be
sweet to me, for I'm tired, very, very weary, but there are many hundreds of
long miles between us and we must not be too sanguine in our hopes.
Where do you suppose I am now? Sitting in a tent, in the
woods, among the tallest trees you ever saw, not very far from the
fortifications of Vicksburg. All the time by night and day the cannon are
pouring death and destruction upon the doomed city, yet its garrison gallantly
holds out. On two successive days we tried to take it by assault, failing,
because from the nature of the ground and the skill of their engineers, their works
are well-nigh impregnable; and more than two thousand brave soldiers have paid
the penalty of the attempt with their lives. Now we invest the city, and if
reinforcements do not come to them in sufficient numbers to overpower us, we
shall starve them out. Already are they reduced to one fourth rations; their
soldiers have a quarter of a pound of corn meal and no meat for a day's
allowance. On some parts of the fortifications water is scarce, the weather is
warm, and the sun scorching. They have been obliged to drive cattle and horses
outside, because they have nothing to feed them on. There are a great many
women and children in the city, and these have been compelled to retire to
caves and holes in the ground to protect themselves from the ceaseless falling
of shot and shell. As a special favor, three hundred of these women were
permitted to cross the river to De Soto, a little way from where my old camp at
Young's Point was, and there they remain under guard from the soldiers, without
shelter of any kind and with very little, if any, food. Many of these are
highly educated and refined ladies; others of like character who were fortunate
enough to be outside the city walls are mendicants to the government they
affect to despise so much, and now pensioners upon its bounty for food for
themselves and children. But this is only part of the horrors of war. God
grant, that you, my dear daughter, may never be called upon to view such scenes
as I have witnessed. He has cursed the land and let loose the demon who demands
blood, tears, and death as his sacrifice. Dearest, you must always thank God
that your lines are cast in pleasant places; you must remember how many and
bountiful are the blessings showered upon you.
I must tell you a little anecdote of my own experience, and
in order to appreciate it, you must know that the route we marched over to
reach this point had already been traversed by three armies, that everything
eatable, and almost all to wear, had been pillaged from the houses that lined
the road, for it is the habit of the soldier to take what he wants wherever he
finds it; and in hot pursuit, or quick retreat, or on the eve of impending
battle, there is no one to gainsay him in his desires. Well, so it happened
that I halted my brigade at Willow Springs to bivouac for the night, and at the
earnest request of a lady, the wife of a physician, made their house my
headquarters, for the presence of the commanding officer is guarantee of
protection. I had been seated upon the porch but a short time, when a sweet
little girl of perhaps seven summers brought me a rose, and as I patted her
head and fondled her, for she was very pretty and interesting, she lisped out, ‘If
I had only a cracker and some water I would go to bed, but I'm very hungry and
I can't sleep.” “Why, my dear, haven't you had your supper?” “No, sir. I haven't
had anything to eat all day, but if I just had a cracker and a little water, I
could lie down.” My supply wagon hadn't come up, but there was about a biscuit
of hardtack in pieces in my haversack, and this I gave the little child, who
sat at my feet and ate it all with such famishing hunger. Oh! it would have
made your heart bleed to see these lambs, so visited for the sins of their
fathers, these suffering, innocent little ones, no food, no shelter, no shoes,
scarce raiment enough to cover their nakedness, though born to affluence. How
long, Oh, Lord! how long?
As we came along the road, particularly after leaving Judge
Perkins's, and skirted along Lake St. Joseph, one of the most beautiful sheets
of water in the world, we passed magnificent plantations, principalities; and
upon each of them a palace, gorgeously furnished with mirrors and velvet
carpets, sumptuous furniture and upholstery of Eastern magnificence, with all
the adjuncts of garden and greenhouse, dovecote, statuary, mausoleum, and
Italian marbles in richest sculpture, marking the burial place of their dead.
The roadside for miles and miles was strewn with all this in mutilation,
carpets and curtains, grand pianos broken in pieces, pearl and ivory keys and
strings all scattered, choice paintings cut from the frames, carried a little
way, then torn and scattered to the winds, fences down, gardens trampled, the
year's harvest gone utterly, frightened negroes peering from behind their
quarters, far down the woodland glen, the relics of the flock, bleating
piteously, soon the prey of the straggling soldier, the palaces burned or reft
of all the beautiful that wealth and art and science could produce, the tomb
desecrated and put to vile uses, and exquisite gardens the purlieus of the
camp. Yet while we sigh for and repine at all this desolation and ruin, we can
but reflect that he, for whose grandeur and magnificence all this wealth has
been lavished, who has subsidized the world to minister to his taste and
convenience, is a fugitive, perhaps in a foreign land, certainly with a paid
substitute, who for gold is willing to raise his unholy hand to tear asunder
the fair fabric that guaranteed him all this opulence and luxury; and the lesson,
so severe, perhaps, is needed. Yet we cannot forget it is written that offences
must come, but woe be to them by whom they come.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 299-303
No comments:
Post a Comment