Monday, March 3, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, February 21, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. U. S. A.,
CAMP NEAR PADUCAH, KY., February 21, 1862.

I arrived safely with my regiment yesterday morning, and am now encamped at a point about a mile and a half west of Paducah. Our voyage down the river was made safely and without accident. I think it a little doubtful whether you received my hurried letter written during the voyage, and therefore am disposed to recapitulate, even at the risk of giving you stale news, the circumstances of our departure from Camp Dennison. As I told you in one of our conversations I have considered marching orders as being near at hand for some weeks, and so endeavored to arrange my regimental matters that I should not be taken unawares, but I hardly expected them to come as they did, by telegraph, and on Sunday. I was very strongly tempted to pass that Sunday with you. Camp had become intensely disagreeable, the weather was cold, inclement, and the ground in a horrible condition, and I thought how very comfortable it would be to take a good Sunday dinner with you and have a nap afterwards on the lounge upstairs, enveloped in my new dressing gown, you were so good as to toil over for me, but again I thought if any accident were to occur to the regiment if I were away, that I would never forgive myself or be forgiven by my superior officers, and that at the present time I owed my whole time, at whatever sacrifice, to my country; therefore I resisted all the temptations and blandishments of home, and well it was that I did so. Oh! how bitterly have some of my officers and even privates regretted that they absented themselves, and at what terrible cost will they be to get to their regiment. I had gone through the duties of the day, which for Sunday in camp, or rather garrison, consists of an inspection of the barracks and soldiers with their arms and accoutrements, and was finishing my tour of the hospital when up rode an adjutant, his horse in a foam, and hurriedly handing me a paper, asked me when I could be ready to march. I looked at my watch, coolly took his paper, which was a telegraphic despatch or order, and replied: "In fifteen minutes." He looked at me incredulously and was about to ride off. I called to him, ''Stop, Sir, I will show you my troops in marching order within fifteen minutes, and leave it to you to report the fact." Within ten minutes from that time my soldiers were in line with blankets rolled and knapsacks packed, ready to march a thousand miles. The Adjutant, an old English soldier, by the bye, who was in the Crimean war and has been to India with troops, looked on in astonishment. But cars could not be put upon the railroad before nine o'clock the next morning, and all night I kept the men up cooking rations for three days. I sat up all night myself, and, of course, was about bright and early in the morning. My boys were all eager for the start. I had but one craven hound who deserted me, and he, I am sorry to say, was from . . . His name was . . . and he must be published to the world as a coward and a perjured liar. At nine o'clock as I sat on horseback at the head of the column with my staff about me, an orderly rode over to say that the cars would be ready by the time that I had marched to the depot. The cavalry regiment had sent their band and an escort, and with my own band we made fine music, and I flatter myself a gallant appearance. At the depot we were met by Colonel Burnett of the artillery with his band, and every officer of distinction at camp was there to bid me farewell. They gave me a good send-off. Few troops have left Camp Dennison under pleasanter auspices, and sooth to say I was loath to leave the old camp after all, for there I have spent some pleasant days "under the greenwood tree, and in winter and rough weather." I was so careful to get the troops on board and to see the last man on, that I got left myself and was somewhat thrown out of my calculations. However it ended well enough, for my farewell to you and the dear children would have been heartbreaking all round, and perhaps wholly unnerved me. As usual in moments of great excitement with me, I had lost my appetite, and did not want a great deal to set me back at a time when I required all my faculties at hand. It is just as bad to march troops from home the first time they leave their homes as to march them in battle to the charge. One of my companies was from Cincinnati, and it was almost heartbreaking to see the leavetakings between mother and son, husband and wife, sister and brother. All classes were represented, and I was compelled to put a stop to the terrible scenes mingled with considerable drunkenness (for the soldiers had so many friends that their canteens were well filled and continually replenished with whiskey) by ordering the captain of the boat of which I took charge in person to run her over to the Kentucky shore. My whole time was taken up as a matter of course, and I tried in vain for an opportunity to come to you. We sailed down the river without adventure worth relating, save that our soldiers fought terribly among each other, at least those who were drunk, and we lost one man by drowning, and another whose skull was fractured accidentally by a shovel. I arrived at Paducah at about six o'clock on the evening of Wednesday the 19th inst. As soon as the boat landed and before my report was written, I was waited upon by General Sherman, who is the commandant of this post, and by him shown on board a steamer lying a little farther down stream from our boat, which was thoroughly stowed, rammed, packed, and crowded with prisoners from the enemy, captured at Fort Donaldson, together with five thousand stand of arms. The prisoners were of high and low degree. I was introduced to one or two colonels and several other officers. The men, in my judgment, do not well compare with ours. I think we can always whip them about three to five. They fought magnificently, however, at Fort Donaldson, and lost probably on their side about three thousand killed and wounded. On our side there were thirteen hundred wounded and five hundred killed. We took thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-six prisoners — these figures are reliable. The hospitals here are perfect charnel houses. . . .

When General Sherman had got through his business with me and had offered the hospitalities of his headquarters, I returned to the boats. The Fannie McBumie, the one in which I sailed, arrived first, and while I was inspecting the prisoners and arms, the Ben Franklin, the boat that had my other detachments, arrived. I was engaged during the night in preparing for disembarkation and at seven o'clock the next morning had my troops, horses, tents, supplies all off; at eight o'clock marched to General Sherman's headquarters, one of the finest regiments, as he told Colonel Stuart in my hearing, he had ever seen. The morning was fine and the boys looked splendidly. We are now, as I told you, encamped at a point about a mile and a half west of the city of Paducah, containing some ten thousand inhabitants. My troops are well bestowed in tents, and I have taken to myself a house of some twelve or fifteen rooms for my headquarters. It was occupied, I believe, by a secessionist, and has fine grounds, stables, etc., about it. I am very much more comfortable than at Camp Dennison. My regiment has the post of honor, and with a battery of artillery guard the encampment. There are a great many troops here. I cannot say nearly how many, for I have not information. I should think twelve or fifteen thousand. General Halleck, under whose command my regiment is placed, is concentrating vast forces here. He anticipates a forward movement. We are ordered to hold ourselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 181-5

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