Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,
Fifteenth A. C,
Young's Point, La., April 25, 1863.
With us now is the excessive calm and quiet of a camp just
preceding a march, and when all the regiments have marching orders; no hurry,
no bustle, each man at his post and packing his own kit. Monday we move, first
by transport, then the march. No tents, one blanket to each man. March light;
that's the order. Sixty rounds of ammunition in the cartridge box and on the
person. One hundred extra in the wagons, per man, that means business. The sun
shines bright, but the soft South wind blows balmy and fans one's cheek like
the breath of angels; nature is hushed in expectancy. Next the rattle of the
cannon and the rolling of the drum.
We have news to-night that they are fighting in Tennessee,
over our old battleground. There 'll be some fun this summer all around or I'm
mistaken. Long time before the “thirsty Erinnys of this soil shall cease to
daub her lips with her own children's blood, or trenching war to channel her
fields and bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs of hostile paces.”
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 290-1
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