Thursday, September 4, 2014

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, January 25, 1865

Washington, D. C, January 25, 1865.

You will doubtless be surprised at the heading of this note. On the 17th inst. I received from the Secretary of War a telegram ordering me to repair without delay to the Adjutant-General of the United States. The same day General Thomas ordered a steamboat to transport me to Paducah, from thence I came hither almost on the wings of the wind, staying neither for fog, flood, nor mountain pass, though I was befogged near Louisville, and snowed up one night in the Alleghenies. Still, considering the distance, I made marvellously good time, and arrived here last night. I discover that I have been summoned to appear before the Committee on the Conduct of the War (of Congress), probably to testify in reference to the Red River expedition.

I shall know to-morrow. My stay here will be only temporary, and I shall probably from here be ordered back to Eastport or wherever my command is. You may think it strange that I could not stop for at least a day, but I dared not. I had been pretty well up to the time I was ordered here, but that very day my old complaint came back upon me with great violence and lasted every day of my journey, and I feared to make a halt lest I should be detained as I was before. To-day I am a good deal better. I have not heard one word from home since the letters that reached me at Nashville.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 379

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