I have written to
you by every opportunity I have had since I left home, and have sent letters by
mail and by individuals. I wrote to you yesterday by mail and to-day I am
writing again because Mr. Robertson, of Texas, in our company, is going home on
sixty days furlough and will take the letter to Waco. My letters are in
substance pretty much the same because I felt so uncertain about your getting
them that I repeated things which I was anxious for you to know; so you must
not think that I am especially "exercised" on a particular subject of
any character because it is mentioned in successive letters. We are camped in a
beautiful grove of large chestnut trees on a hillside, about a mile from
Raccoon Ford. We have no tents and the ground is hard and a little rocky. My
fine blanket and shawl were stolen between Branchville and Columbia.
I have left my
overcoat with Miss Mary E. Fisher, Franklin Street, between Sixth and Seventh,
at Richmond, and all of my other effects, except a change of clothing, at
Columbia; and since I have come to camp and gotten a haversack (there are no
knapsacks) I have taken out one suit of underwear and put all my remaining
effects in my carpetsack to be sent to Richmond; so you see my load is quite
light. You need never trouble yourself to send me anything but
letters and cheerful hopes. We cannot fight and carry baggage, and my supply
will last for three years with what mother can send me. It is no use to have
clothes which must be thrown away on every march. We are now about to change
our camp and have four days rations cooked, but do not know what we are to do
or where to go.
I saw Tom Lipscomb
yesterday. He is a major in Hampton's Brigade. He told me that Lamar Stark was
taken prisoner in the same fight in which Gillespie Thornwell was killed. Some
of them have been exchanged and Lamar will soon be. He is being well treated.
This is reported by some of the exchanged prisoners. All of the Waco boys are
well except Allen Killingsworth. He has been very dangerously sick with flux
and high fever. He is not altogether out of danger but a great deal better. We
are trying to find a private house for him as we are to leave here to-day. I have
said something in previous letters about your coming to Columbia, and have
stated my plans so fully in two letters, one by mail and the other by hand,
that I will only say here that if it is as easy for you to get through as when
I left you may try it if you choose, but leave all the servants at
home. You must get a good escort to Jackson, Mississippi.
I opened my Bible on
the first day I arrived at camp, and the first place my eyes fell upon was the
104th Psalm. Cannot a God of such power preserve me and you, or take care of
you without me. Be cheerful and do not borrow trouble on my account. I forgot
to say that we have plenty of bread and meat and the finest water I ever saw.
To-day is a chilly, damp day, and it is raining a little. We will sleep wet to-night
as there is no way to keep blankets dry. Aunt Mary Stark gave me a blanket in
Columbia. Kiss the little darlings for me, and be assured that whatever befalls
or awaits me is all right. God does it and He does all
things well.
P. S.—John Darby, my
old classmate, is our division surgeon, and gives general satisfaction to every
one. He is very much in love with Miss M—— P——.
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, pp. 63-5
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