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
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