Cairo. Hot! You don't
know what that word means. I feel that I have always been ignorant of its true
meaning till this week, but am posted now, sure. The (supposed-to-be) “never
failing cool, delicious breeze” that I have talked about so much, seems to be
at “parade rest” now and — I can't do justice to the subject. The health of the
camp is much better now than at any time before, since we have been here. There
is not a sick man in our company. My health remains gorgeous. We drill now five
hours a day, under a sun that cooks eggs in 13 minutes, but we think we feel
the heat no more walking than lying around the quarters.
The seceshers this morning took the packet that has been
plying between here and Columbus, and have run her off down to Memphis. I
thought that Prentiss stopped her sometime since, but this at last closes all
communication between the North and South at this point. Our “ossifers” we
think are really scared about an attack here, but you could not make the
soldiers believe in the like till they see the fight begin. About a thousand of
our men were rushed off to Bird's Point to-day to work on intrenchments, and
won't they sweat?
My chum heard Colonel Oglesby tell an officer two hours ago
that there were 17,000 Rebels within 15 miles of the Point. The scouts reported
this body at New Madrid, 40 mile's down the Mississippi, two days since.
Yesterday 12 men from the Pekin company and 12 from our's with some
artillerymen went 30 miles up the Mississippi to collect all the boats we could
find on the Missouri shore. We found three large flats tied up to trees along
the shore which we confiscated. One of them wasn't very good so we sunk it. The
object was to prevent marauders from visiting Illinois. I had charge of the men
from our company.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 23-4
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