Captain Charles Wright Wills: June 4, 1863

Middleton, Tenn., June 4, 1863.

We made another little change yesterday. The regiment is now guarding the M. C. & R. R. from Grand Junction to Pocahontas. We are in detachments of two companies each. H Company is with mine. We marched 23 miles to make this point yesterday, and arrived at 10 o'clock p. m. We only made four miles after dark, and the road was so horrible and the woods so thick we had much difficulty in finding it at all. We occupy the depot and have strengthened it by a revetment of fascines, so that we consider ourselves perfectly safe if attacked by even ten times our number of infantry. Artillery would scoop us. This little town had when the war commenced some 40 houses; now it boasts of not more than 12 or 15, though a number of extra chimneys add so much to the picturesqueness of the scene, that I can excuse the houses for "going out." This country has literally been scraped, swept and scoured. The guerrillas first ran the Union men off, and then when we came here the Unionists returned, took up arms and drove out all the secesh families. You can hear of murders being committed in every neighborhood by either one party or the other. It will take at least 8,000 years for this people alone to make this country what Illinois is now, on the average, and at least 1,000 to bring it up to the standard of poor, God-forsaken Lewistown township. I have never been so comfortably situated in the army, except when with Colonel Mizner, as I am now. The boys have rigged up nice bunks in the depot wareroom, which are dry and comfortable, have good water, light guard duty, and the citizens bring in to us their extra vegetables, etc., and trade them for our surplus rations. The boys give one pound of coffee for two dozen eggs, or two pounds of butter; sell them bacon for 15 cents per pound, etc. Two very fine elderly ladies pleading for a horse to-day, told stories of tremendous length about how "Union" their husbands were prior to their deaths. I'd almost rather give up my head than have two women of their age begging of me for anything that way. I have the telegraph room for myself and have fixed it up nicely. I know well enough that it is too good to last long and shall resign it without a sigh, and if ordered to Vicksburg, with a cheer. I fixed up our last camp as well as I could in hopes that my pains would bring us marching orders, and we got them, but the direction was wrong. This is so much better that it must surely win. Maybe you don't know that there is a superstition (almost) among soldiers that arranging a camp particularly nice and comfortable brings marching orders.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 177-9