Near Corinth, Miss.,
May 19 ,1862.
Our regiment now is acting as a kind of rear guard for
Pope's division. The enemy's cavalry in bodies of from 1,000 down have been
running around our left flank and threatening to interfere with our trains.
Every day we send out six companies to patrol between here and the river and
forward. Yesterday (Sunday) I was out. We went to Red Sulphur Springs, one of
the most romantic, beautiful places I have ever seen. There are about 40 double
cottages for families, and stables, kennels and quarters for the servants,
hounds and horses. The buildings are in good repair, though the place has not
been frequented much for the last three or four years. White Sulphur Springs
are four miles from the Red and more fashionable. I am going there to-morrow.
There were about a dozen real ladies at the springs yesterday, and they were
quite sociable and so interesting that I could not help staying an hour after
the column left We were the first of our soldiers that the party had seen and
they were much surprised that our boys behaved so well. None of them had ever
been North, and they occupied about all the time I was with them in asking
questions, principally though, about the conduct of our army. About a mile
before we got to the springs we passed a house where there were as many as six
young ladies in full dress. The major sent me to make some inquiries of the man
of the house, and I noticed the party were in something of a flurry but
ascribed it to the presence of our men. Of course Sunday was an excuse for the
finery and there being so many together. After we had advanced a little way one
of our captains took a squad, went ahead and passed himself for a Rebel officer
just from Corinth. By his figuring he found out that at this house I have spoken
of they were expecting some Rebel officers and men, 14 in all, from Corinth to
dinner and a visit. We set a trap for them, but they heard of us through the
citizens and sloped. They came within a mile of us and then their tracks showed
they had gone off through the woods and a swamp on a run. We got one of their
horses, a beauty, fully equipped. It being a hot day the owner had strapped his
coat on his valise and not having time to take it off we got it. A dozen of our
boys went back and ate the dinner, but without the company of the ladies who
had flown. Our line has now closed to within two and one-half miles around the
north and east sides of Corinth. Our men have thrown up breastworks within that
distance along nearly the whole line. The cannons play on each other
occasionally, say as an average four times a day, a half hour each time. Our
line is, I think, nine or ten miles long; am not sure. The Rebels are suffering
for rations, not more than half rations having been served for the last ten
days. Hundreds are deserting from them. One battalion that was raised in this
county, over 500 men, have all deserted but about 90. The commander himself ran
off. Of a 100 men that deserted from them probably five come within our lines.
The rest all go to their homes. If Porter takes Mobile, and Farragut and Davis
get Memphis, I think in ten days afterward there will not be enough Rebels left
in Corinth to oppose our regiment. There is no doubt that they have more men
now than we have but they lack discipline. Success at the points above named
will leave them without any railroad communication whatever or telegraph
either. I'm afraid that our gunboats got the worst of that little affair at
Pillow the other day. An army is the slowest moving animal. Here we've been over
a month making 20 miles. I think I shall run off to McClernand's division this
p. m. and see some of the 17th and 8th boys.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 90-1
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