Bird's Point, Mo., December 22, 1861.
This is a dark, dismal, snowy and confoundedly disagreeable
Sunday. Cold, sloppy and nasty! We moved into our cabin last night but it is
not finished yet, as a crack along the comb of the roof and sundry other
airholes abundantly testify. The half snow half rain comes in when and where it
pleases, and renders our mud floor comfortable in about the 40th degree. Don't
this sound like grumbling, Well, I don't mean it as such, for I am sure the
boys are as cheery as I ever saw them, and I wouldn't think of these little
things except when writing home, and then the contrast between its cozy
comforts and soldiering in cold, wet weather makes itself so disagreeably
conspicuous to my spiritual eyes that I can't pass it unnoticed. Love Hamblin
came over here last night and is now standing by the fireplace indulging in an
ague shake, which if not pleasant is not to my eyes ungraceful.
No more troops have arrived here, and save the whole gunboat
fleet being here there are no new signs of the down-river trip we are all
waiting so impatiently for.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 48-9
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