Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,
Fifteenth Army Corps,
Camp Before Vicksburg, April 3, 1863.
My Dear Mother:
We are fully aware of the feelings toward Sherman. We know
the antagonism against the Army of the Southwest. We know the efforts of
traitors at home, and those who are not called traitors but who nevertheless
would rejoice at the failure of his army to open the Mississippi, jealousy is
rampant; war, more terrible civil war than we have yet known, will desolate the
North as well as the South. My friends at home will remember my prophecies two
years and one year ago. The rebellion, revolution, call it what you will, is
not understood.
David Stuart has been rejected by the Senate. He is now
neither general nor colonel, and is only waiting from day to day an order to
relieve him from his command. Of course it will affect me and at once. He was
my immediate ranking commander, and his place will be filled, I suppose, by
Frank Blair. I shall not be immediately affected in my command — that is, I
shall retain my brigade — but aside from this I am seriously and personally
grieved. General Stuart has been my near, dear, and most intimate friend; his
place as such to me in the army can never be filled. Of splendid genius, most
liberal education, wonderful accomplishments, as scholar, orator, lawyer,
statesman, and now soldier. With the courage and chivalry of a knight of old,
and the sweetness and fascination of a woman, he won me to his heart, and no
outrage . . . has affected me more than his rejection. I have no patience to
write about it or think about it. The blow was unexpected by all of us.
Generals Grant and Sherman, Stuart and I never thought of such a thing — could
not guard against it. When I first reported at Paducah with my regiment to
General Sherman, at my own request, for I had known him in Washington, I was
brigaded with him. We went directly into service and together. We fought side
by side at the battle of Shiloh, till he was wounded, when I assumed his
command. We made all the advances to Corinth together and rode side by side in
the long marches through Tennessee. We fought at Chickasas Bayou and at
Arkansas Post, and advanced together at “Young's Point.” Many and many a long night's
watch I made with him, many a bivouac in the open air through night and storm
and darkness, always sharing our canteens and haversacks. Had I been killed he
would have perilled life to save my body. Was my honor assailed, he the first
to defend it; little I could ask of him he would not grant, and when I say to
you that he was really the only real, true, thoroughly appreciative friend I
have in the army who I care much about, you may imagine how irreparable is my
loss. His character is not well understood in the community, because an
unfortunate notoriety attached to him in the . . . case.
His own sufferings therein turned him prematurely gray in a
very few months. His father was a partner of John Jacob Astor in the celebrated
American Fur Company, and made for Astor ten millions of dollars. He was
educated at Andover and in Boston, and was the protégé of Mrs. Harrison Gray
Otis. He was brought into life very early, and married into the Brevoort family
in New York, but being a great favorite of General Cass, was brought into
politics in Michigan. At a very early age he was Prosecuting Attorney of
Detroit, and immediately afterwards represented the Detroit district in
Congress; there I made his acquaintance. He abandoned political life to take
the solicitorship of the great Illinois Central Railroad, which gave him the
control of the railway influence of the entire State and Northwest; and he
abandoned stipulated salaries of eighteen thousand dollars per annum to enter
the service, having expended upwards of twenty thousand dollars to put two
regiments into the field. He has travelled largely in Europe and in Canada; his
family are in the army and navy, he is exceedingly familiar with military life
and has a most decided taste for it. His record is clean and bright, one to be
proud of; he exerts a wider and better influence than any other man in this
army, and why he should have been thrown over is a mystery.
The roses are blooming here and the figs are as large as
marbles, the foliage is coming out green and the mocking birds hold high
carnival. This is a famous country for flowers and singing birds. My horses are
all well. If there was any safe opportunity, and I thought you could manage
them, I would send two or three home; they are very high-strung and want a
master's hand. Bugles and bayonets don't tend to depress the spirits of a good
horse, and mine are the best in the army.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 283-5
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