Captain Charles Wright Wills: October 21, 1863

Iuka, Miss., October 21, 1863.

We reached here the evening of the 18th inst., and I have been on extra heavy fatigue nearly ever since our arrival. We worked all night first night loading wagon trains and unloading cars. We were doing the work of another division, but, such is war. The impression is that we will leave here about the 23d. The other divisions have all moved on, taking with them thirty days' rations. We marched all the way from Memphis. Went about 20 miles out of our way to burn a little secesh town of some forty homes — Mount Pleasant. We reached Collinsville the day after Sherman, with about 800 men, had his fight with Chalmers. I stood the march splendidly, and am good for Chattanooga at 25 miles per day. It rained gently three nights on this march, and one night like the devil. We got in that night about 9 o'clock, and by a blunder of our brigade commander bivouacked in a regular dismal swamp. We had just stacked arms when the clouds sprung a leak, and such a leak, the cataract of Niagara is a side show, comparatively. Build a fire! Why, that rain would have quenched a Vesuvius in its palmist [sic] days. I never saw just such a night. The one we spent at Lumpkin's Mill on the 18th of last April, of which I wrote you, was more disagreeable, because colder; but in six hours am sure I never saw so much water drop as in this last rain.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 196-7