1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: March 28, 1862

Point Pleasant, Mo., March 28, 1862.

There isn't a thing to write only that they keep up the infernal “boom, boom;” with their cannons all day and night long. It's perfectly disgusting the way they waste powder and iron without killing anyone. They have knocked every house in town to flinders, and round shot and grape and shell are lying thick on the ground and yet we haven't a man touched. They were having a hot time with their cannon and some musketry firing, too, down at Palmer's last night from 10 p. m. to 2 a. m., but haven't heard yet what was up. I have my own reasons for thinking that they are evacuating Island 10. If they don't do it this week I'll believe that they are waiting for a lot of gunboats to come up from Orleans, and that we'll have the fun of a naval engagement in the vicinity. If there is one within 40 miles of here I'm going to see it if I have to wade a swamp ten feet deep, as I probably will, but see it I'm bound to. Then if the Rebels whale our craft you'll be likely to hear the sound of their cannon before long without leaving home, for there's nothing to prevent their going anywhere after they pass our gunboats. It will be a great joke on Uncle Sam if they do make that riffle. Wonder what would become of the home guards. About the worst feature of the case would be the Southern officers sparking our girls as we do theirs now and the worst yet is, there is no doubt the girls would take to it kindly, for they do here, and I'm satisfied there is no difference in the feminines of the two sections, except that ours do not say “thar” and “whar.” I see that it requires a good many “ifs” and “theirs” to arrange a case of this kind, but I assure you that it is not out of the range of possibilities. How'd you like to see a “Captain St. Clair de Monstachir” with C. S. A. on his buttons, making calls in Canton? I'll bet ten to one he could enjoy himself in that burg. Bang! Boom! D--n the cannons! It's awful tiresome. I do hope we'll get them cleaned out of this ere long. I don't understand why it is that our mails are so tardy. We get the Chicago and St. Louis papers two days after publication. I almost think that Pope has ordered our mail to lay over in Cairo until further orders.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 75-6