Friday, August 22, 2014

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, November 16, 1864

Headquarters Armies Of The Un1ted States,
City Point, Va., Nov. 16, 1864.

I write not to give interesting intelligence, but simply to advise you that I am in the land of the living, at City Point, on James River, that waters the sacred soil, and that I am about as far to the front on my way to Richmond as it is this day safe to go.

The James reminds me a good deal of the lower Mississippi, and so far as I have come, its banks are studded with points of interest, and historical in the war. At Fort Monroe, I saw the finest fleet that, perhaps, has ever been collected in the American waters. Leaving Washington in a steamer for this place, I passed Alexandria, Point Lookout, Harrison's Landing, Newport News, Fort Powhatan, Wilson's Landing, Jamestown Island. If the children will look at the map, they will discover that we descend the Potomac, scud along Chesapeake Bay, and at Fort Monroe ascend the James, so that they can get upon my track. There is no news here proper for me to write. General Grant is in good health and spirits and I hear as late as last Wednesday from Sherman, who also is well.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 364-5

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