Saturday, September 27, 2014

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith, August 11, 1865

Headquarters Post Of Mobile,
Mobile, Ala., Aug. 11, 1865.

The chronic complaint with which my system is poisoned, will never be eradicated; the diarrhoea at times is beyond anything you ever saw or dreamed of, and from day to day I look at myself in the glass with wonder and amazement that I am still alive. Change, radical change of air, may possibly alleviate; it is worth the trial. Under the most favorable circumstances, I should die in two weeks in Ohio, and will not come back in warm weather to make the experiment.

The weather here is very warm. We have no epidemic as yet, but I hear of yellow fever in New Orleans. I will do what I can to keep it out; as long as the nights remain warm there is no danger. A little strange, is it not, that in a Southern climate warm weather is a guarantee against infection?

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 408

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