Bivouac in Mud Creek Cove, near Belle Fonte,
Ala.,
December 11, 1863.
Without any earthly cause I am troubled with a small fit of the blues
this evening. I can't imagine what brought it on. I am cross, restless and
tired. Don't want any company — wouldn't go to see a girl if there were a
thousand within a hundred rods. Interesting state for an interesting youth,
isn't it. Guess the trouble must be in the fact that I have no trouble.
Everything moves too smoothly. No pushing in my family to knock down a
looking-glass balanced on a knitting needle. Nothing in my precious life to
keep me awake. one minute of my sleeping time, and nothing in the future that I
now care a scrap for. All of that is certainly enough to make one miserable.
I'm convinced that my constitution requires some real misery, or a prospect for
the same, in order to keep me properly balanced. If you can furnish me any
hints on the subject, that will induce distress, trouble, or care, in a
reasonable quantity to settle on my brain, I will be obliged. I have written
you so much about soldiering, sister, that I'm thinking the subject must be
pretty well exhausted. You must have received as many as 150 letters from me
since I entered the army. I have had a host of interesting experiences since I
enlisted, but when I am alone, and naturally turn to my little past for
company, I always skip the army part and go back to the old home memories. One
finds a plenty of opportunities for such self-communing in the service, and if
I haven't profited by mine, it is my own fault. Did I ever tell you how I love
picket duty? I have always preferred it over all other of our routine duties,
yet it would take a sheet of foolscap to tell you why; and then nobody could
understand me the way I'd write it. So we'll pass. It seems a long time since I
was at home. What do you think of my eating Christmas dinner with you? Don't
let's think of that at all. I start for Chattanooga in the morning to get my
team and things. It is six weeks since I have had a change of clothes from my
valise. Borrowed a shirt from a woman once and got mine washed.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 205-6
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