Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Major Charles Fessenden Morse: May 22, 1864

May 22, 1864.

I open my letter again as an opportunity now offers of sending it quite direct. To-day the term of service of the old men of the regiment expires, and they start for Chattanooga to be mustered out; the Colonel and several other officers go with them to sign the necessary papers. Colonel Coggswell has just received an order to go to Massachusetts to expedite the forwarding of recruits to the regiment; he will give you the latest intelligence about me. You see by this, that for the present, I shall have command of the veterans, — not many of them, but men who can fight their weight, and a little more, anywhere.

To-morrow, in the words of Sherman's general order, we start on another “grand forward movement,” with rations and forage for twenty days. Atlanta is evidently our destination; whether we shall reach it or not remains to be seen. One thing we are certain of — Johnston cannot stop us with his army; we can whip that wherever we can get at it. I wish the Army of the Potomac had no greater obstacle. We are now in a decidedly warm climate; the weather averages as warm as ours in July and August; what it will be when these months come, we can only imagine. I am, as usual, enjoying perfectly good health, and shall stand this campaign as I have all my others.

It is very painful to read the losses of friends in Virginia, — Stevenson, Abbott, and others. Here, outside of our own divisions, we know scarcely any one.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 167

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