Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,
Fifteenth Army Corps,
“Young's Point,” Before Vicksburg, Jan. 30, 1863.
My Dear Wife And
Mother:
I have your letters, mother's of the 15th and 18th and
wife's of 22d inst. I can imagine your anxiety, and regret you could not sooner
have heard of my safety and well being. But you were not born to be a soldier's
wife and mother. You must keep up brave hearts; none of us can die but once; as
well in the battle as in bed. I hope my life may be spared to comfort you for
many years to come, and assure you that I will not unnecessarily, or otherwise
than in the strict performance of my duty, expose a life dearer to others than
it deserves, far dearer to them than to me, and you must write me cheeringly.
Give me words of comfort and good cheer. We need comfort, for we are in a
pretty tight place at the present writing; camped just in front of that famous
ditch of Butler's that the papers made so much fuss about last year and in the
full view of Vicksburg, about two miles, including the width of the river, from
my tent. As I write, its white towers and steeples and window panes gleam in
the light of the setting sun. It's the Gibraltar of America, and we shall have
a good time taking it, I guess; but nil desperandum; we shall try. I
believe I wrote you some account of the affairs at Chickasas Bayou, and at Post
Arkansas. My troops behaved remarkably well in both engagements, though I lost
rather more than my share. I stand well enough with the army here, but have not
had the luck to do anything brilliant enough to make me brigadier, except so
far as they can give it to me by brevet. I do most earnestly want the rank, and
think I have honestly earned it, but suppose I must exercise patience and wait.
My health is pretty good. Indeed I always feel well while the weather is cool
and the past three or four days have been lovely. In the immediate personal
superintendence of large works, I am in the saddle constantly.
My horses are peculiar, and I ride hard in battle and
latterly with a large command have had to spread myself over the field. This
was a good deal the case at Chickasas. Morgan L. went over almost the
first pop, while I had run the gauntlet half a dozen times before him and was
over the same ground where he fell for hours afterwards and always under fire.
The newspaper reports are all false; there is scarcely any coloring of truth to
them. I am always confounded with Morgan L. and his brother Giles A. I am
utterly lost in the obscurity of the name. My only salvo is in the official
reports; there alone can I be identified, and in an official report the bare
detail alone is permitted. I have sent you two from my immediate commanding
officer. General Sherman's I have not yet seen, but am told that I receive
therein flattering mention. I have tried hard to win my spurs, but my heart has
been made sick by the terrible injustice of the public prints. I have nobody in
particular to blame; I don't know that I have a single enemy among the
newspaper reporters; yet I am always ignored. You must take the published
stories of the correspondents with very great allowance. They are never
eye-witnesses of the scenes they attempt to describe. This I assure you is
true, and a moment's reflection will give you the reason why. They have no
business in battle; there is no position they could occupy. In the din and confusion
and smoke and hurly burly, the assault, the charge, the cannonading, the
rattling of musketry, the changing front of long lines of troops, the rapid
advance, the quick retreat for change of position, the trampling of cavalry,
and artillery and orderlies' horses — where would the newspaper reporter, with
his pen and wit or pencil and paper be? No, they are far off to the rear,
picking up items from stragglers, and runaways and the riff-raff of the camp
and army; with just enough knowledge of the ground and the main facts to form a
basis, they draw upon their imagination for fancy sketches, and paint their
words in glaring colors. My regiment did go in where none dared to follow, and
by my superior officer was withdrawn after the performance of the most heroic
valor. It was the astonishment of the army, and no mention is made of it. The
8th Missouri was not under fire at any time during the fight at Chickasas. Its
former colonel, the present major-general, was wounded by a sharpshooter before
the engagement fairly began. See the reports and the absurdity. But I won't
dilate upon what you cannot well understand, and in which your heart cannot
possibly be.1
________________
1 Readers of Field Marshal, Lord Roberts's
interesting book, will see that trouble with the correspondents of newspapers
besets military commanders in these later days also. There is great similarity in
the expression of his views in relation to this subject in his account of the
Afghanistan campaign.
"No one could be more anxious than I was to have all
details of the campaign made public. I considered it due to the people of Great
Britain that the press Correspondents should have every opportunity for giving
the fullest and most faithful accounts of what might happen while the army was
in the field . . . What to my mind was
so reprehensible in this Correspondent's conduct was the publication in time of
war, and consequent excitement and anxiety at home, of incorrect and
sensational statements founded on information derived from irresponsible and
uninformed sources, and the alteration of telegrams after they had been
countersigned by the recognized authority, the result of which could only be to
keep the public in a state of apprehension regarding the force in the field,
and what is even more to be deprecated, to weaken the confidence of the troops
in their commander." — Forty-One
Years in India, vol.
ii., p. 166.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 266-8
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