Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, November 1, 1861

REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS 54TH R. O. V. U. S. A.,

CAMP DENNISON, OHIO, Nov. 1, 1861.

Stephen¹ is to the fore and doing well. He plays many parts, hostler, body servant, cook, groom, laundress, seamstress, secretary, steward, and boy about the tent, and has taken to soldiering with such a vim that half the time when I want him I find him standing on his head with a musket between his teeth, swallowing a sword or plunging a bayonet into a zouave. He carries arms openly and above board to his great delight, the only drawback to his perfect happiness being the disability in the way of uniform — an officer's, of course — for he has an unearthly, morbid, and uncontrollable contempt for a private soldier, whom he looks upon as little better than a dog.

I have just received a letter from the Adjutant-General notifying me that the Governor of Ohio has promoted me to the colonelcy, so I suppose I am a step higher in the estimation of somebody. One thing is certain, my boys and I have got as bloody a set of preaching, praying, stealing, fighting, riproaring zouaves as the war turns out. . . .  You would laugh sometimes if you were here to listen to the rascals yelling . . . for the "old Colonel," as they call me.

__________

¹ His body servant.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 176