Camp 103d Illinois
Infantry, Jackson, Tenn.,
January 16, 1862.
It commenced raining early the morning of the 14th and did
not cease until about 2 a. m. the 15th, since when it has snowed steadily until
within two hours. The snow is some eight inches deep, underneath which is mud
immeasurable. The rain the last six or eight hours came through our tent as
through a sieve, the snow came in at the top, through the door, and blew under
the curtains. Everybody's wearing apparel, blankets, and self absorbed all the
damp possible, and besides carried all that would hold on outside. Our stove
was in this extremity our comfort and our joy. We kept two loyal Ethiopians
busy during the two days, getting wood, and feeding said comforter. Great was
the tribulation, and much audible cursing resulted, while the secret history of
oaths unuttered, would I'm afraid, fill many volumes, and in all human
probability cause, if made public, the appointment of many army chaplains. This
is the first winter weather that we have had, and I'll be willing if it proves
the last, although there is a half melancholy pleasure in spludging around in
this slop and taking the weather as it comes, without its first being made to
feel the refining influence of house walls and good warm fires. Our men have
become quite soldier-like, and endure without much murmuring the little ills as
they come. It shows some of the principles of manhood, you must believe, when
men stand this weather in these worthless little wedge tents, without fires and
without grumbling. I got four of my men discharged to-day, and want to discharge
some six or eight more. When I get my deadheads off my hands will have some 70
good men left. Rather think now, that we are stationary here for the winter,
but we may possibly be sent to Vicksburg, than which nothing will suit us
better There are some eight or nine regiments here, two or three of them
cavalry. The enemy is pretty well cleared out of this strip of country, and if
Rosecrans gets down into North Alabama, opinion seems to be that some of us can
be spared from here for Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Several houses have been
burned here lately. This town will share the fate of Holly Springs, sure, if
the Rebels trouble us here any more. 'Tis fearfully secesh, and a little fire
will, I think, help to purify it. Isn't it wonderful how with so much fighting
everywhere I have escaped so long? The whole of the 10th Illinois Infantry were
with me in luck until the last fight at Murfreesboro, and am not certain they
participated in that. There are two regiments here that have endured all of
this storm without tents. I suppose the Lord takes care of them fellows, if it’s
a fact that he looks after sheared sheep and birds. From my heart I pity them,
though that strikes me as something like the little boy who, when his mother
put him to bed and covered him with an old door, told her how much he pitied
folks who had no doors to cover themselves with while they slept. That's a
story mother and aunt used to tell me in my trundle-bed days. Wonder if aunty
has forgotten the story that used to make Tip and me rave. All about how that “great
big prairie wolf bit a wee boy's head off.” I almost forgot that I am out of
woollen socks. Have only the pair of socks that are on my feet. Put them on
this morning, and there were so many holes that I could hardly tell where to
put my feet in. Wish you'd send me three or four pair. Will make cotton ones do
until then. I can send you a nigger baby if it would be acceptable. They are
more "antic" than either a squirrel or monkey. I have two he niggers,
two she's and three babies, mess property. Think I will either have to drown
the babies, or sell them and the women, whom I endure because their husbands
are such good hands. Will you take one?
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 147-8