Headquarters First Brigade,
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps,
Department Of The Tennessee,
“Camp Kilby” 1n The Field, January 1, 1864.
My Dear Sister Helen:
The weather in this
neck of woods has been most charming, warm and balmy, until night before last,
when after a most terrific rainstorm, the full benefit of which your brother
received, riding that day forty miles or more, the wind changed to the north,
and suddenly there came a flurry of snow followed by freezing and most bitter
high wind. I never felt more intense cold anywhere. I don't know the condition
of the thermometer, but everything about me has been frozen up, ink, ale — everything
that will freeze — and to-day, although the sun shone bright, there was no sign
of thaw. It is by far the coldest weather I have experienced for more than two
years. It is exactly a year ago to-day since we withdrew from “Chickasas Bayou,”
within six or eight miles from here after one of the severest contested battles
I have been in. I little thought to be here, that day, now. It has been a year
of remarkable events to our country and to me.
I send you a few old
books that have been my solace in many a weary hour past; don't scorn them because
they are old. “Old wine, old books, old friends,” you know — and each one of
them I send you has a legend to me, associations that make it dear, and,
therefore, for my sake, you will keep them as a little more precious, giving
all of the family who wish a taste of their contents, for they all have
intrinsic worth; you will note a memorandum in some from whence they came, etc.
For a whole month
past I have been in the wilderness, so I can write you no stirring story. I
left a life in Natchez that almost realized a fairy tale; this could not last
long, and on some accounts I am glad it is over. I am again in the front,
though it was pleasant, while it lasted, to sit in '”fayre ladye's bower.” I
wonder how you all look at home. I have hoped for cartes, but I suppose it
would be expecting too much from the enterprise of the family. I wonder if I shall
ever again see any of you. Almost every night I dream of the dead, of father,
and Walter, and Charlie. One or two nights ago my dream was so vivid. I thought
I woke with Walter's hand in mine. Can it be that the dead watch over the
living, and come to us in dreams; I sometimes think that this is true, and that
for every friend we lose on earth we gain a guardian angel. I hope our dear
mother is well and happy. I can see by her letter that in my children she
renews her youth. She has had many and sore afflictions, but bears a brave
heart. You must all do everything in your power to smooth her pathway. I have
met many women in my experience of life — many beautiful, witty, sweet and
lovely, some who thought they loved me — but never any woman like our mother,
never any one with so many graces of mind and body.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 347-8
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