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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