Camp 103d Illinois
Infantry, Jackson, Tenn.,
January 12, 1863.
Your letters are beginning to come through with more
regularity and on decidedly better time. Have received your date of December
30, although the last was dated November 16th, and was the first you wrote
after we left Peoria. You bewailed our being sent south of Cairo, which I think
very ungenerous in you. Well, you'll probably be suited in our present
location, which is the only consolation I have in being sent so far rearward.
There are some slight hopes though, that we may be sent to Vicksburg, which
will ripen into a distant probability (nothing more I'm afraid) if the news of
our repulse there be true. We're encamped in the suburbs of this delightful
little town, but so strict are the orders of the general (Sullivan) that, as
far as seeing the town or making purchases therein are concerned, we might as
well be camped on Pike's Peak. All right, Mr. Sullivan, have your own way. He
is by all odds the most like a soldier of all the garrison commandants I have
been under. Will wager that you will never hear of his being surprised. The
news from Holly Springs is that the last house in the town was burned night
before last. Pretty rough, but I say, amen. Its pretty well understood in this
army now that burning Rebel property is not much of a crime. I for one will
never engage in it, until orders are issued making it duty, and then I think I
can enjoy it as much as any of them. If any part of this army is ever called
home to quell those Illinois tories, orders to burn and destroy will not be
necessary. Since I have seen the proceedings of that traitorous legislature, I
begin to understand why these loyal Tennesseans and Alabamians are so much more
bitter against traitors than we are. It would make your blood run cold to hear
the men in this army, without regard to party, curse those traitors. There is a
gay time in prospect for those chaps. Don't think I am much out of the way in
saying that Merrick, Jem Allen, Dick Richardson, and the editors of the Chicago
Times would be hung if caught within the lines of many Illinois
regiments in this army. There are many officers who, while they doubt our
ability to subjugate (that is the question) the South, would take an active
part in ending the man who would propose to give the thing up. I come pretty
near belonging to that party, though I think that if we can't accomplish the
whole end desired, we can confine the Rebels to Virginia (Eastern), the
Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. Alabama, I believe, we can hold if we get
Mississippi. Boats which left Vicksburg on the 6th inst. reported it taken, but
it must be a mistake, as it has not been confirmed. I think it was wicked to
put that brave old 8th Missouri and 4th Iowa into the front of the battle,
after they had suffered so severely at Donaldson, Shiloh, Farmington, etc., but
ever since Shiloh it seems that the old soldiers have had the front all the
time. 'Tis reported that when Grant moves again, he will leave all the new
regiments as railroad and property guards, and move with the old army. The last
night I stayed in Holly Springs, Mrs. Stricklin invited in some young ladies to
help entertain the colonel, Lieutenant Nickolet and myself. They beat all the
secesh I have seen yet. One of them played all the secesh pieces she knew, and
when I asked her to play “John Brown,” she swelled up so with wrath, that I was
strongly tempted to propose tying my suspenders around her to save hooks and
eyes. One of them asked me if I did not think the Southerners the most polite, refined
and agreeable people I had ever met. It took me twenty minutes before I could
finish blushing for her lack of modesty, and then I was so dead beat that I
could only take up the word refined, and tell her how much I admired their
beautiful use of language. I instanced, “what do you'uns all come down here to
fight we'uns for,” “I recon we war thar,” which you'll hear from the best of
them. That first quotation as they speak it is the funniest sentence
imaginable. I got into a row with every one I talked with, but finally, was
fool enough to escort one home. Rumor (almost official) says to-night that we
go to Memphis to-morrow, or soon, and thence to Vicksburg. Congratulate us on
our good luck. This regiment will never be satisfied without a fight. They run
in in our pickets once and awhile here, and I believe two were killed (pickets)
yesterday, but guess there is no chance for a fight. The 18th Illinois Infantry
is being mounted.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 145-7
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