Friday, March 7, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to his sister Helen, March 4, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. I. U. S. A.,
ENCAMPMENT NEAR PADUCAH, KY., March 4, 1862.

MY DEAR SISTER HELEN:

You must not any of you be alarmed for my personal safety. I am just as well cared for as if I was by your side in New York, the same good God is above me here as there. My health is excellent, I am only troubled for the loved ones at home. In one of your letters to Lizzie you speak of having heard of my regiment from Washington. I have never permitted it to be puffed through the newspapers, and have only wanted it to win its laurels honestly; but I assure you that it is the finest and best drilled regiment that ever left Ohio, and has been complimented by General Sherman, the Commandant of the Post, as the best regiment in the division here, some fourteen thousand strong. My men have been carefully selected for the Zouave drill — for I suppose that you are aware that it is a Zouave regiment — have been picked out for their youth and physical strength and activity, and I assure you in its ranks may be found some of the most splendid specimens of manly beauty. Their uniform is very handsome, though not as fantastic as the Zouaves you have seen about New York. They have dark-blue jackets, reaching to the hips, trimmed with red; light blue trousers with red stripes down the sides, and white gaiters, reaching some three inches above the ankle. Gray felt hats, low-crowned, and looped at the side with bright red tassels; some of them wear very fancy hats or caps, without vizor or brim, which with the streaming tassel makes them very picturesque. Their overcoats are bright indigo blue, with large capes. They are a splendid, brave, handsome set of fellows. My officers are certainly very handsome men, all of them, and among them men of fine talent, almost all accomplished as amateurs in music, drawing, and all that sort of thing. Some of them are good poets. We often have Shakesperian readings. I send an impromptu got off the other night by one of the lieutenants. . . . A society to which he belonged in college was called the "Owl," and he was requested to deliver a poem. Upon the spur of the moment he wrote that which I enclose and offer as a fair sample of the talent under my command.

My regiment is splendidly armed with the Vincennes rifle, and the troops are in fine spirits. Still there are troubles and trials and bitter vexations attendant upon a command which no one but he who has been through, can appreciate or estimate. Immense responsibility, gross ingratitude, no thanks for almost superhuman efforts, and the constant necessity for coolness, patience, forbearance, and the cultivation of a skin as thick as that of a rhinoceros. . . .

You will expect me to write you some war news; that I cannot do, for it is prohibited. I can tell you that I sent a detachment from my regiment to co-operate with a detachment from another command to occupy Columbus; and I can tell you that one of my lieutenants who was detailed on secret service has just returned from Forts Henry and Donaldson. He corroborates the published accounts of the fight at Donaldson, which was brilliant. Our troops fought under a most terrific hail of shot and shell; some five thousand on both sides were killed and wounded. You learn all these things through the newspapers, however, which relate them much better than I can.

The weather at this point is very changeable. We have had some lovely spring-like days, but to-day is bitterly cold, and yesterday we had snow and rain. March is a disagreeable month, I believe everywhere. It has always been disagreeable to me, wherever I have been.

Paducah was, before it became the seat of war, a beautiful town of some ten thousand inhabitants, among whom was a vast deal of wealth, exhibited in their fine mansions and sumptuous furniture. Very many of the private dwellings, luxurious in their appointments, the Court House, and other public buildings, have been taken for the use of the army. Elegant shade trees have been or are being cut down for fuel; gardens and lawns laid waste; beautiful palings torn down, and devastation made the order of the day. Most of the inhabitants who have been able to do so have gone away. The character of the people is decidedly "Secesh." The town is, of course, under martial law, civil courts for the present abolished, and no citizen can come or go without a pass from the Provost Marshal. A company is detailed from my regiment each day, whose duty it is, in connection with other forces, to guard all the points and lines of ingress and egress to and from the town, with orders to guard and search suspicious persons. All this gives one a full realization of war, which you in the Eastern cities have not yet had brought home to you, and which I trust you may never see. . . .

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 186-8

No comments: