Saturday, May 27th.
Enclosed herewith I hand you the only copy of Mobile paper I
can procure; the details therein will be sufficient without further comment
from me. To-day is deliciously cool, too cool for comfort without woollen
clothes. My little boat has just arrived, bringing me cargo of chickens, green
peas, string beans, cucumbers, blackberries, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, with
beautiful bouquets sent to me from Mount Louis Island, a blossom or two you
will find pressed.
I cannot say what my future will be, a resignation would not
be accepted, inasmuch as I have a full major-general's command, and I am in
uncertainty as to the day or hour when I may be mustered out, or ordered hence
to another field. It is only left to me to be patient to the bitter end. There
is a growing disposition through many parts of the country to pay more honor to
the base rebels who have been conquered in their efforts to overthrow the best
government in the world than to the brave defenders of their flag. It will not
be long before the United States uniforms will cease to be a badge of honor.
How base the treatment of Sherman, how nobly he has emerged from the fiery furnace.
I dare not trust myself in speculation upon passing events, or anticipation of
the future.
I rejoice to note by the price current that most of the
staples of life are largely reduced in value; corn, oats, flour, etc. You will
now be able to make your dollar purchase pretty nearly a dollar's worth, and
thus your income be virtually increased.
I am not much in the habit of telling dreams, and there is
no Joseph to interpret; but three that have been lately dreamed, are so
peculiar in connection with passing events, that, without giving them in full
detail, I will let you have the outline. The first dream I dreamed myself about
the time of the assassination of the President, and it was to this effect; that
General Canby sent for me to be the bearer of despatches to President Lincoln,
and that I went to heaven to deliver the despatches. You will naturally ask how
heaven appeared to me in my dream. I can only give you a vague idea of my
impressions. The scene was a spacious apartment something like the East Room of
the White House; but vast with shadowy pillars and recesses and one end opening
into space skyward, and by fleecy clouds made dim and obscure, just visible,
with a shining radiance far away in the perspective, farther away than the sun
or stars appear to us. I have no remembrance of my interview, but a clear
recollection of my sensations that were those of perfect happiness, such as I
have never had waking or dreaming. I would not tell this dream to anyone, till
some weeks afterwards the Provost Marshal of my staff told me of a strange
dream in which he had awakened the night before, and that had made a serious
impression on his mind. The scene of his vision was laid at Carrollton, near
New Orleans. I was standing surrounded by my staff, Jemmy Sherer and Joe, when
a man approached and asked me to retire to the back yard on plea of private and
important business. I walked out with him and a moment after a rebel officer
followed us, with his hand upon a pistol, partially concealed in his breast.
Mrs. Stone, the wife of my Inspector-General, called the attention of the
dreamer to this fact, with a solemn warning that I was about to be
assassinated. He at once sprang to the door for the guard, and perceiving an
officer in command of an escort approaching, called halt, that from him he might
procure the guard, but as he neared, discovered he was escorting a long funeral
procession of mourners clad in white, in the centre of which was a hearse with
towering white plumes. A colloquy and quarrel ensued, and pending the
denouement he awoke. He told his dream to me, and on the instant, my own being
recalled to mind, I told him mine, but neither of us mentioned the matter to
others. Lastly, the Adjutant, Captain Wetmore, had his dream. The march and the
battle, and all the vicissitudes of the campaign, in the rapid kaleidoscope of
thought, had passed through his brain, when at last Jeff Davis appeared, a
captured prisoner, then he was indicted, tried, and convicted, all in due
course, and finally the sentence, that he be banished to “Australia” for twenty
years, provided the consent of the British government could be obtained
thereto.
These dreams were all vivid and interesting in detail, the
last the most sensible of the three, and certainly as easy of interpretation as
those of the butler and the baker of the King of Egypt. Yet they only serve to
remind us of the words of him, who wrote as never man wrote, who knew the human
heart, and springs to human action, and the world, and all its contents, better
than anyone on earth,
“All Spirits,
And are melted into air, into thin
air;
And, like the baseless fabric of
this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the
gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe
itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall
dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial
pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are
such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our
little life
Is rounded with a sleep. . . .”
My next letter will be dated from New Orleans, events
transpiring, foreshadow my early departure from my headquarters at Dauphine
Island, to which I have become a good deal attached. I have had some lonely
hours on its shores, but the waves have made sweet music in my ears.
I have some fresh accounts of the horrid accident at Mobile;
language fails to do justice to the terrors of the scene. The professional
sensation writers will fill the columns of the daily press with details, and I
will not attempt to harrow up your soul with my tame pen.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 403-6
