July 1, 1864.
This campaign is coming down to a question of muscle and
nerve. It is the 62d day for us, over 50 of which we have passed under fire. I
don't know anything more exhausting. One consolation is that the Rebels are a
good deal worse off than we are. They have lost more men in battle, their
deserters count by thousands, and their sick far exceed ours. We'll wear them
out yet. Our army has been reinforced by fully as many as we have lost in
action, so that our loss will not exceed our sick. You notice in the papers
acounts of Hooker's charging “Lost Mountain,” taking a large number of
prisoners, and the names of officers. You see they are all from the 31st and
40th Alabama. It is also credited to Blair's 17th Corps. Our brigade took all
those officers on the 15th of June. I wrote you an account of it then. It hurts
us some to see it credited to other troops, but such is the fortune of war, and
soldiers who do not keep a reporter must expect it. Colonel Wright starts for
home to-day.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 272
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