Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, August 8, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. INF.,
CAMP NEAR MEMPHIS, Aug. 8, 1862.

Your letter of the 1st inst. has just been received. I cannot understand why eight days should be consumed in the transit of mail matter when the individual requires only two to pass over the same ground. The army, however, is always scolding the mails, and perhaps without reason. We ought to be thankful for any intelligence, however tardy.

Our tents are pitched in pleasant places near the city, plenty of shade and pure water. The health of my men would improve if they would practise self-denial in food; but the temptation in the shape of green corn, fresh fruit and vegetables is too much for their frail nature to withstand. If I can get them safely through September, they will be in good training for a fall and winter campaign. My own diarrhoea has never left me — I suppose never will. I have lost flesh and strength, but I do not suffer save from the inconvenience and loss of rest at night. Sometimes it is checked slightly, but I think it is chronic and beyond the power of medicine. No furloughs or leaves of absence are granted from this division of the army, on account of sickness or for any other cause. I have asked furloughs for officers and men who have died, and whose lives, I am assured by the surgeons, might have been saved by change of air and alleviation from the miseries of the camp, but never with any success. I would not ask a furlough for myself, I would not take one if offered; but it would be worse than useless to ask. It will be long before I shall see family or friend. This hard, pitiless war will never come to an end in my lifetime. Last night three of my officers, who were badly wounded at Shiloh, returned. Two of them were shot very severely, one having his kidney, lung, and liver pierced with a Minie-ball; and yet, strange to say, he is here to-day reported for duty, while men who got only flesh wounds died. I thought they would not return to their regiment, but they felt the peculiar fascination that few are able to resist. Their welcome by their old comrades in arms was very affecting. Strong men embraced and wept. Those who had stood shoulder to shoulder during the two terrible days of that bloody battle, were hooped with steel, with bands stronger than steel; and those who might have been discharged, the scars of whose honorable wounds were yet raw, forsook friends and the comforts of home to come to their regiment, to the society of their companions. This is the great impelling feeling, though duty, patriotism, and “death's couriers, Fame and Honor, called them to the field again.” No officer whose honor is dear to him can be away now; absence from post is a burning shame and will be a lasting disgrace.

It is not probable that Sherman will be ordered to Vicksburg for some time, if at all. Meanwhile the drill and the discipline of the troops is rigidly enforced. Brig.-Gen. Morgan L. Smith, under whose command the “54th” is brigaded, is a martinet almost to tyranny.

I do not deem it beyond the range of the probabilities of this war that Cincinnati be attacked. Buell will have his hands full to prevent it. The city would be a tempting prize to soldiers.

You had better have an eye on this matter in the making of your fall arrangements. I don't want to write that which will give you uneasiness. I do not regard it as at all certain that Bragg would push his columns up between Curtis and Buell; but it is certain that there is a good deal of disaffection in Kentucky. If Richmond is evacuated — and disease and want of commissary stores may compel this — then desperate men in large guerilla bands may precipitate themselves upon a city so far as I know undefended. The South is a united people; they have over one million and a half of fighting men, their soldiers are better drilled and better disciplined than ours, they are better armed and fight as well, and above all it is far easier for them to keep their regiments filled up to the maximum number, than it is for us. Every man, who is able to fight, is willing to fight. The women, the children, the old, the feeble, take pride in the army, and cheer those on to glory whom they think are winning it in the defence of their homes, their firesides, and the heritage of their fathers.

I saw a sweet little girl the other day the very image of Bettie and very much like her in manners; of course I courted and petted her, notwithstanding she was a most bitter little “Secesh.” It was most amusing to hear her philippics, but I could not help loving her for Bettie's sake, and the little witch, as evidence that I had won her favor, though a “Yank,” came with her father to my camp. She is the first child I have spoken to for six long months, if I make an exception of the occasional pickaninny, an insect with which this sunny South abounds. It was very amusing on the march to see whole flocks of them, generally nude, by the roadside in the care of some ancient mother of the herd.

Enclosed please find an effusion from the pen of Col. Tom Worthington, a brother of the General, with whom I have become quite intimate; the lines were almost if not quite impromptu, written and handed me just after the battle, though since, I believe, published. The allusion to the azalia is very happy; the whole air was redolent with their perfume on the day of the battle, and more than once I caught a handful of them, while my horse was treading among the dead.

This afternoon I am invited to a grand review of the 8th Missouri, and to meet all the field officers of the division at General Sherman's headquarters. Within two or three days we present General Sherman with a sword, and I am expected to make the presentation speech at a grand dinner, at which I suppose nearly all the officers, certainly all the field and staff, will be present. As I remarked of General Smith, so Sherman is a martinet, but he is a soldier, every inch, and as brave as they make them. I fought by his side all day from seven o'clock in the morning till dark on Monday, sat by him when his horse was shot, and saw his hand grazed by a cannon ball. He's every inch a soldier and a gentleman and a chieftain. Colonel Worthington don't like him, which is strange, for they are both West Pointers, but the fact is the Colonel is a little jealous that he has not a higher command.

My prince of horses, Bellfounder, is in splendid health, his neigh rings out long and loud whenever he sees me. You shall ride him if he ever gets home.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 232-5

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