Diary of Private John C. West, Tuesday, April 14, 1863

Left Palestine about 5 o'clock a. m., in a two-horse wagon; same company, with the addition of Mr. Mathus of the First Texas. The ride to Rusk would have been insupportably dull but for good company; nothing but red clay hills and deep gullies, ornamented with pine and oak. It, however, brought up some pleasing reminiscences of old South Carolina and my boyhood days—the season when ambitious hopes, burned in my breast and I determined I would be a man—little dreaming then that I would have the satisfaction of striking a blow in the holiest cause that ever fired the breast of man, and illustrating by action the feelings which glowed and burned in my little heart, on reading the stories of Wallace and of Tell.

We reached Rusk about 4 o'clock in the afternoon without an incident of interest, and found W. G. Thomas to be the quartermaster there.

He appears to be an accommodating and clever officer and refunded our transportation which we had paid out at Palestine.

To-day is the fifth anniversary of my wedding day, and I have thought often of my dear wife and little ones and wished I could be with them, but I am resolved not to remain quietly at home another moment while a foe is on our soil.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 15-6