Camp on the N. W. R. R., Tenn. Dec. 31, 1863. – Mr. Editor: – Being in camp today, and having nothing to read, I have concluded to enclose you a dollar greenback for which I wish you to send me your paper, as we get but few newspapers in this God-forsaken land of treason.
Our Battalion (the 3d) have just returned to camp after being on a four days’ scout. We went from here to Fort Donelson and made a raid back through a portion of country in which it was reported a large force of guerrillas made they headquarters, but could get no fight out of them. We are stationed here to guard the Railroad and the workmen who are repairing it, and to clean out the various bands of guerrillas that infest this country. We have taken a great many of them prisoners and treated them as prisoners of war, and in return they have taken some of our boys prisoners, and we have just heard that they have shot them. The boys say they will have revenge – they are exasperated, and woe be to the guerillas they capture hereafter, for death will be their portion. These guerillas are a set of men, who, under the name of Confederate soldiers, murder every Union soldier they can capture and every Union man they can find in this country.
This is one of the poorest countries I ever saw. I would not give one county of Iowa for all of this State, and I have seen a good portion of it.
The intelligence of the people is in unison with the country. A poorer set of ignorant devils I never saw in any country. We have seen grown men and women who never saw the flag of our country and looked upon it with astonishment. They believed that Iowa Soldiers were a set of cutsthroats [sic] who would kill all the women and children we came across. Such a thing as a school-house does not exist here. And this is the kind of material Jeff Davis and the Copperheads of the North have deluded with the doctrine of coercion – men who cannot read – men who never read the Constitution of the country – men who never traveled outside their own township. Poor deluded wretches who do as the leaders of this infernal rebellion bid them.
We have had no general engagement as yet. The material we have to fight are too cowardly to come out and fight like men but fire on us from behind logs and rocks and then run like deer before the hounds.
The health of the Regiment is now very good.
Yours respectfully,
W. D. K.
Co. F, 8th Iowa Cavalry
[Hawkeye.
- Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, January 30, 1864
Our Battalion (the 3d) have just returned to camp after being on a four days’ scout. We went from here to Fort Donelson and made a raid back through a portion of country in which it was reported a large force of guerrillas made they headquarters, but could get no fight out of them. We are stationed here to guard the Railroad and the workmen who are repairing it, and to clean out the various bands of guerrillas that infest this country. We have taken a great many of them prisoners and treated them as prisoners of war, and in return they have taken some of our boys prisoners, and we have just heard that they have shot them. The boys say they will have revenge – they are exasperated, and woe be to the guerillas they capture hereafter, for death will be their portion. These guerillas are a set of men, who, under the name of Confederate soldiers, murder every Union soldier they can capture and every Union man they can find in this country.
This is one of the poorest countries I ever saw. I would not give one county of Iowa for all of this State, and I have seen a good portion of it.
The intelligence of the people is in unison with the country. A poorer set of ignorant devils I never saw in any country. We have seen grown men and women who never saw the flag of our country and looked upon it with astonishment. They believed that Iowa Soldiers were a set of cutsthroats [sic] who would kill all the women and children we came across. Such a thing as a school-house does not exist here. And this is the kind of material Jeff Davis and the Copperheads of the North have deluded with the doctrine of coercion – men who cannot read – men who never read the Constitution of the country – men who never traveled outside their own township. Poor deluded wretches who do as the leaders of this infernal rebellion bid them.
We have had no general engagement as yet. The material we have to fight are too cowardly to come out and fight like men but fire on us from behind logs and rocks and then run like deer before the hounds.
The health of the Regiment is now very good.
Yours respectfully,
W. D. K.
Co. F, 8th Iowa Cavalry
[Hawkeye.
- Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, January 30, 1864
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