Thursday, August 7, 2014

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to his sister Helen, January 1, 1864

Headquarters First Brigade,
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps,
Department Of The Tennessee,
“Camp Kilby” 1n The Field, January 1, 1864.
My Dear Sister Helen:

The weather in this neck of woods has been most charming, warm and balmy, until night before last, when after a most terrific rainstorm, the full benefit of which your brother received, riding that day forty miles or more, the wind changed to the north, and suddenly there came a flurry of snow followed by freezing and most bitter high wind. I never felt more intense cold anywhere. I don't know the condition of the thermometer, but everything about me has been frozen up, ink, ale — everything that will freeze — and to-day, although the sun shone bright, there was no sign of thaw. It is by far the coldest weather I have experienced for more than two years. It is exactly a year ago to-day since we withdrew from “Chickasas Bayou,” within six or eight miles from here after one of the severest contested battles I have been in. I little thought to be here, that day, now. It has been a year of remarkable events to our country and to me.

I send you a few old books that have been my solace in many a weary hour past; don't scorn them because they are old. “Old wine, old books, old friends,” you know — and each one of them I send you has a legend to me, associations that make it dear, and, therefore, for my sake, you will keep them as a little more precious, giving all of the family who wish a taste of their contents, for they all have intrinsic worth; you will note a memorandum in some from whence they came, etc.

For a whole month past I have been in the wilderness, so I can write you no stirring story. I left a life in Natchez that almost realized a fairy tale; this could not last long, and on some accounts I am glad it is over. I am again in the front, though it was pleasant, while it lasted, to sit in '”fayre ladye's bower.” I wonder how you all look at home. I have hoped for cartes, but I suppose it would be expecting too much from the enterprise of the family. I wonder if I shall ever again see any of you. Almost every night I dream of the dead, of father, and Walter, and Charlie. One or two nights ago my dream was so vivid. I thought I woke with Walter's hand in mine. Can it be that the dead watch over the living, and come to us in dreams; I sometimes think that this is true, and that for every friend we lose on earth we gain a guardian angel. I hope our dear mother is well and happy. I can see by her letter that in my children she renews her youth. She has had many and sore afflictions, but bears a brave heart. You must all do everything in your power to smooth her pathway. I have met many women in my experience of life — many beautiful, witty, sweet and lovely, some who thought they loved me — but never any woman like our mother, never any one with so many graces of mind and body.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 347-8

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