Headquarters District Of South Alabama,
Fort Gaines, Ala., March 23, 1865.
My Dear Mother:
A glance at the map will show you the locality of “Dauphine
Island” and Fort Gaines, my headquarters for the present. It is just beyond
Grant's Pass, at the entrance of Mobile Bay, about twenty-eight miles from the
city of Mobile, and about one hundred and eighty miles from New Orleans. The
island is not many miles in circumference, and, save on one side, the view from
it is only bounded by the horizon, it has little vegetation but pine trees, and
the surface is covered with fine, white perfectly clean sand, almost as free
from impurities as snow. The beaches are fine, and the music of the surf is
always in my ear. Oysters and fish of the finest varieties abound and I have every
facility for taking them. I have never seen oysters so fat or of so delicate
flavor, and I am told that they are good and wholesome every month in the year.
I am fortunate in having secured a most excellent cook, whose specialty seems
to be the preparation of oysters, and really I have eaten no other food except
bread since I have been here. During present operations, and until I move to
headquarters, I shall be in daily communication with New Orleans, newspapers
from whence reach me within twenty-four hours of publication. The air here is
most delicious, and is said to be highly salubrious. From time immemorial the
citizens of New Orleans and Southern Louisiana have resorted here for the
benefit of health, and these islands, and the coast near by have been ever free
from the ravages of yellow fever. I look southward over the open sea towards
Havana, and it is from the West Indies that the pleasant south wind comes. My
health improves, my bowels have not troubled me for a good while, and under God
I am blessed with the most favorable opportunity possible to recuperate my
well-nigh exhausted energies.
My anxiety will be great until I hear of the return in
safety of my dear wife. I left her in what to her was an embarrassing
situation, and I am proud to say she governed herself like a true heroine, and
though left entirely alone in a strange hotel, in a strange city, and among
entire strangers, she bore herself at my sudden departure like a true soldier's
wife, without a whimper. I left Walter on the street without a good-bye. I pray
to God they have got home safe.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 380-1
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