Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, June 27, 1863

Headquarters Dept. Of The Tenn.,

Near Vicksburg, June 27, 1863.

I mentioned in a former letter having received General Sherman's to you. I cannot see how he could, in language that would not have been fulsome, have given more expression of feelings of friendship toward me; other than those feelings I have no right or reason to demand. He is perfectly sincere, and I believe would rejoice at my success. He cannot make it for me, I must do that for myself, through the aid of God by my own merit, if I possess. These things are all hard for you to understand. The science of the soldier and the art of war, obtaining in this fearful strife, differ from all that experience or reading have given you knowledge of. The ordinary springs to human action in a measure fail. We are brought to greater exactness of action. An army is a vast machine of which each individual is an integral part. Shiftings and change cannot easily be made without disarrangement of the whole, never after a certain point, save by direction of the chief of all. Thus I report to General Lightburn, he to General Blair, he to General Sherman, he to General Grant, he to General Halleck, he to the Secretary of War, who in his turn goes to the Commander-inChief, the President. But till you get to General Halleck, that I have given illustration of, is only one of a series of systems aggregating a vast whole. Now, General Sherman's power is really very limited; he has no appointing power; he can only recommend to his superior officers, and how often has he done this for me! He is no more responsible for my misfortune than he would have been for wounds and death in battle. Some favors may always be granted by superior off1cers; these favors have been lavishly extended to me by all of mine who are in the field, by none more liberally than by General Sherman. His bed, his table, his wines, cigars, everything has been placed at my disposal. He has shared my blanket and laid him down by my side in the bivouac before the dread day of battle. He did this on the night of the 18th, before the first bloody assault. We have been baptized in blood together. He is not an affectionate man, but on the contrary, austere and forbidding. He never meets me without a glad smile and a warm pressure of the hand. You must not doubt him. It was not by General Grant's order that I was assigned as president of the court that sat at Milliken's Bend; but because I had intimated to Colonel Rawlins, A. A. Gen., that I had not reported back to my regiment and wanted something to do. The service was temporary, and has long since been performed and reported upon. While presiding at the court, I became an actor to some extent in the affair at the Bend when the negro regiments were attacked, and officially made some report of the matter to General Grant. Out of that matter grew a necessity for other and important service which I was assigned to, and thus I have gone along from day to day, hardly anticipating a permanent charge till after the reduction of Vicksburg. I cannot tell what they are doing at Washington. Mr. Chase has small power in the War Department. I have reason to believe I was nominated before my papers arrived, and before active influence was made for me, and that I lapsed with several score of others, from excess of numbers and the insignificance of my name; so common a name is a greater barrier to success than can be imagined by those who are not fellow sufferers. If Grant is successful, I still hope there is something bright for me, if not, I must do my duty, unmurmuring, if hopeless. If I perish without the glittering surrounding of rank, I trust I shall be able to die like a soldier.

You speak of the little diary I sent you as if it was important. I thought it might be of some interest to the children as showing something of life on the march, and the effects of war, but considered it hardly worthy of second perusal. I am surprised you should have thought it worth while to send East what was only meant for the home circle. You need give yourself no uneasiness about my deprivation from exercise and my removal from the saddle. I was but a brief time on the steamboat, and my feet are oftener in the stirrup than on the ground.

You will still compliment my letters. You read them with a loving mother's eyes, too partial a judge. I see so much I cannot write. If I could seize opportunity, and describe what I should so much like to describe as it passes before me and when the fit is on, I might write something worthy. But as time passes, new events obliterate the recollection even of old excitement, and the excitement of yesterday is old with us to-day. I wrote you in my last letter that I had been detailed on delicate service, and prepared you for what I thought might be a prolonged absence. The occasion was my going with a small escort under a flag of truce which was a feint to meet or endeavor to meet General Taylor, one of the commanders of the rebel forces. With this object I took a steamboat at Milliken's Bend on the 22d. Debarking there at daybreak, rode to Richmond, or what was once Richmond, twelve miles distant, and there found the bridge burned. I ought to say that after the fight at Milliken's Bend, the enemy fell back to Richmond, and there entrenched themselves. That we sent out forces to dislodge them, that they were defeated, driven out, and the town, a very pretty place containing some two thousand inhabitants, court house, jail, large hotel, etc., was burned; nothing that was inflammable was left; everything but the bricks and mortar was consumed. The enemy before retreating had burned the bridge themselves, and so, from its charred remains, I was compelled to construct another, to cover the deep bayou. Some two hours' labor effected this object, and with a bit of cracker and coffee, made in a tin cup, for breakfast, forward we went, and oh! how desolate was the country we crossed, and how dreary the ride! The fleeing enemy had been panic-stricken, and all along the road for miles had thrown the loads from the wagons and sometimes abandoned the wagons themselves. Bedsteads and mirrors, glass, crockery, bags of meal, clothing, sewing machines, baskets, boxes, and trunks, with pots, pans, and camp equipage, lay promiscuously scattered. But the most noticeable objects were the corpses of the unburied dead, smoked and blackened in the sun, too carrion even for the vultures and buzzards. At every bayou crossing, bridges torn up and fresh delays. Finally I reached the Tensas, twenty miles. Here, too, the bridge was burned, but on the other side was a house giving promise of water. The bayou water is not drinkable, and we were parched with thirst. A woman appeared on the opposite bank to show us the ford, and this was strange, for we were far inside the enemy's lines. A struggle through the mud, a ford almost a swim, and we were over. The woman fairly cried with joy to see us — the first real, genuine Union woman I have met in the South. Her husband was under the ban and on our side; he was poor and had been hauling cotton for transportation North — an unpardonable sin, and she had been made to suffer. Along with four young children, she had been persecuted by the retreating army, and no wonder she over flowed with joy when her friends came in sight. She gave me some buttermilk and some eggs, and after resting an hour, on we went. Soon the enemy's pickets were in sight, but instead of approaching, seemed to be fleeing. In vain the sergeant waved his flag, conspicuous enough, for it was a sheet borrowed from the steamboat berth and tied to a pole. As we marched forward they marched back, until at last they fairly made a run for it; thereupon we halted and tried another coaxing process, and at last, after making various signs, they approached or rather waited our coming with the timidity of young fawns. We explained the nature of our flag ; they were very glad to know we were not going to fight them, and said they had watched us from Richmond and hovered in our front all the way those ten long miles and had sent back for reinforcements, and had come near shooting one of our men who had stopped to take the water out of his boot at the ford. We reassured them and rode forward for about the space of a mile, when we were encountered by the reinforcements, dismounted, drawn up in line of battle. Their captain was stupid, and after the pickets had informed him we were a flag of truce, he insisted upon mistaking us for rebels, and boring us with the most absurd questions about the strength of Grant's army, the condition of affairs at Vicksburg, etc. At last we drove it through his head that we were Yankees, as they call us, and as soon as light broke through upon him, he became dumb with astonishment; nevertheless we marched forward well enough for four miles and then stopped to camp. We continued winding through the dense woods by the side of bayous or the shores of little lakes until at last, crossing another bridge, we encountered another picket. It was interesting to us to pass this picket, for it was near nightfall, the rain began to come down heavily; we had ridden some thirty-two or three miles and were near Delhi, where we expected to find General Taylor and a pretty large force of the enemy. But they halted us and I came to a parley. The officer was peremptory. I brought a stunning argument to bear — that I had been permitted by all the other picket guards to pass, why should he refuse, and by what authority — at last prevailed, and on to Delhi. Three or four miles brought us to the camp guard of the outside regiment. We had penetrated thirty-six miles inside of the enemy's lines since morning. They looked on us with wonder and astonishment, called no halt, and on we went right through their camps. The soldiers gathered in groups by the wayside to gape at us; the officers ran out of their tents; my escort was only ten men and a sergeant. We enquired the way to headquarters and reported to the commandant, and demanded to see General Taylor. General Taylor was not there. This was what I wanted and hoped for, for I knew if he was not at Delhi he must be at Monroe, sixty-five miles further up, and I wanted to penetrate the country as far as possible. Meanwhile it had rained very hard, and was still raining. We were wet through. The question of quarters was interesting, for it was almost dark. The commandant evidently did not know what to do. I suggested the hotel. He brightened, and we were permitted to go there and seek quarters. They did not know how to receive a flag. Their pickets ought not to have let us pass without first reporting and disarming us; but there we were and there was no help for it. Now imagine a small town with a railway passing through, scattered houses and a large square frame hotel, your son followed by his troops and a crowd of soldiers, officers, citizens, old and young, all agape with astonishment; evening, and muddy. Landlord comes out uncertain whether to receive us or not; anxious for his pocket, more anxious for his house. At last the pecuniary prevails, and he thinks he can make provision for us, but can't for the horses. Under shelter, and immediately afterwards under strict guard and surveillance: got some supper, corn bread, fresh pork, and something they call coffee, made of parched wheat. After supper the commandant called and demanded the despatches; refused to deliver them, on the ground that my orders were peremptory to deliver them to General Taylor in person. The commandant, a Major Beattie from Texas, was green and nonplussed; he didn't know what to do, finally concluded to put us under guard and himself in telegraphic communication with General Taylor. At last I got rid of him and went to bed, wet through to my buff, and got a sound sleep, to wake and find myself close prisoner in the camp of the enemy; breakfast, the duplicate of the supper, and after the breakfast the show began. I seated myself on the upper porch and the "butternuts" passed in review. Some citizens came to talk to me, some officers. The same old story of what you read in the newspapers — '”they are united, intend to fight till the last man is dead,” and all that sort of thing. Finally, Brigadier-General Legee, Aide-de-Camp of General Taylor, made his appearance, and now I found I had to deal with a soldier and a man of sense. Of course I was baffled, as I expected to be. He insisted upon my despatches and my return; no further penetration to their stronghold except at the head of an army. I was satisfied, however, for I had informed myself upon the principal point I was after. So I delivered my despatches with as good grace as possible, and received the necessary returns. I found General Legee, aside from his politics, to be a fine soldier and a most admirable gentleman. He had graduated at Cambridge, and afterwards read law there; had spent some time in Cincinnati, and knew a good many of my friends . . . and in short, we soon found we were old acquaintances almost, and sat down to have a good time; that is, as good a time as gentlemen can expect to have without wine or anything else but water to drink and no cigars to smoke; nevertheless, we had a comfortable chat. He made my imprisonment as light as possible; and next morning with an escort from the enemy we retraced our steps without adventure, stopped at Richmond, or the cisterns of Richmond rather, for water and a bite. While the men were resting, I wandered through the gardens; they could not burn them, but what a picture of desolation they presented. For the first time flowers seemed out of place, the fruit, apricots, peaches, and grapes, was just ripening. Some frightened, superannuated negroes came up to gape, and I hurried away from the smouldering ruins after extorting from them a promise to go out and bury the dead upon consideration that they should possess themselves of all the property abandoned on the road. Back to the Bend, and rapidly put the same in a state of defence, for unless I had checkmated them, they had calculated to come in. When I say they or them I always mean the enemy, the only terms almost by which we know them. On board a boat at 7 P.m.; found a sick lady who had taken refuge with her servants, reassured and encouraged her; down to General Dennis to report. Sat with him till two o'clock in the morning, then up the Yazoo; out at daybreak, and reported to General Grant at breakfast time. Yesterday I rested, for I was a little tired, and to-day am anticipating an order to go to Grand Gulf to report to General Banks with despatches, and while I rest I write you this tedious letter. You may see by it at least that the grass does not grow under my feet.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 307-14

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, June 17, 1863

Headquarters Fifteenth Army Corps,

Walnut Hills, Near Vicksburg, June 17, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

You must not doubt General Sherman's friendship for me; he is the soul of honor, the bravest, truest, loyal heart that ever beat. Not his to betray. I am sure he means just what he writes to you. I know, had it been in his power, my promotion would long since have been made. It would be long for me to explain to you the intricate machinery of an army, or the peculiar and despotic laws by which it is governed; friendship, even from those high in rank, avails but little. What I say of General Sherman equally applies to General Grant; the latter has not been profuse in his expressions of friendship, but has given me the most convincing proof that he admires, esteems, and respects me; his verbal and written endorsement is all I could ask. You request me to have a personal interview with him. I smile. For there is hardly a day when I am near his headquarters that I do not see him. He never goes to the table at meal time, when I am about, that the invitation is not extended to me; he and his staff, with all of whom I am on the most intimate terms, are always polite. General Grant has frequently done me the honor to ask me my advice. My opinion upon grave matters has been taken as law by him. He knows me very well, and exactly my position. He would be rejoiced to greet me as Major-General, but he, like Sherman, has no power to confer rank. No colonel in the corps, I am quite sure, has had the courtesy, kindness, consideration and indulgence that has been granted by both these generals to me. I am very grateful to them for that which I have no right to demand. Remember, I am serving my country, not either of them; that the privileges of rank give wide disparity, that aside from myself and my own claims, which, after all, are meagre, for kind fortune has not yet given me opportunity for brilliant achievements; there are hundreds, thousands, who have claims for faithful service, to say nothing of those who he under the sod, or those other dear martyrs, who, maimed and crippled, offer their bleeding bodies in testimony.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 305-6

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, June 3, 1863

On Board Steamer “America,”

Milliken's Bend, June 3, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

“Once more upon the waters.” Yesterday, by order of General Grant, through General Sherman, I left the front and, as president of a court, reported at this point. Yesterday and to-day I have been in command of a very fine steamboat, only occupied by myself and suite, and shall retain command as long as I please, going and coming as I list. I hardly think an attack will soon be made by our forces, and the relief from the terrible suffering of the camp in the present season with scarcity of water can hardly be overestimated.

I to-day received your letter of 27th ult., with slips enclosed, and will endeavor to answer it and the others in inverse order. You have before this received news of my safe passage through the fiery furnace. My report accompanying will be about the best version I can give of my part of the affair, and then we will dismiss the subject with the sole remark that I wrote my report in the hot sun and under fire, seated upon a stump, in about two hours, and the draft I send you is not to say improved by the blundering stupidity of my clerk. Therefore, if it is not as artistic a production as you would like, you must blame the enemy, not me. I had as lieve write in a hornet's nest as anywhere within range of their sharpshooters, for they give an officer no peace, and don't have much regard for a private soldier.

I don't think Rosecrans will go to the Potomac. I am very sure neither Grant nor Sherman will give the world any such evidence of insanity; neither of the latter care much about being heroes — certainly not of the sort that army makes. General Grant told me he received your letter, which he complimented as being very patriotic, and was surprised to learn I had a mother, having always classed me, I suppose, in the same category with “Topsy.” General Sherman might have received, read, and carried one from you in his pocket for six months, seeing me every day meanwhile, and yet not say a word about it, and then, at the end of six months recite the contents from memory — that 's his way. No doubt he received it. Both those gentlemen are always polite to me, both are doubtless my friends, as friendships go in the army; but unless you see them as I do, you could form no conception of the magnitude of the enterprise, the herculean labor they are forced to perform, the immense interests they have at their control, or the numbers who claim friendship with and acts of friendship from them. I have little right to claim more than my share and am abundantly satisfied if I receive even justice. They have both behaved very handsomely to me, and I think General Grant, in assigning me to my present very honorable and most responsible position, has been actuated by a desire to give me some relief even if only for a brief season; that both he and Sherman feel keenly a regret that the Administration has overlooked me. I certainly have nothing to complain of, nobody to find fault with, unless the President of the United States, and doubtless there are many far more worthy than I am who suffer in silence.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 303-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, May 25, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,

Fifteenth A. C,

Wa1nut Hills, Miss., May 25, 1863.

I wrote you a hurried note yesterday to give you all at home assurance of my safety. I am to-day in receipt of your letters of May [sic] 29th, enclosing one from wife advising of the death of Judge Piatt, and of May 5th, and from Helen of May 10th. I promised you yesterday full details of march and fight, and for convenience (time being precious and opportunity for writing scant), substitute diary of one of my clerks, which gives the main facts, and enclose for reference a map to accompany same, upon which route of army can be traced. At close of diary you will perceive I have been relieved from my command. I send copy of correspondence between General Sherman and myself which ensued upon reception of the order, the only explanation I have to offer. I premise the same by a copy of the order assigning General Lightburn.

I proposed to General Sherman either of three courses, to resign, to ask to be mustered out, or for leave of absence. He declines to entertain either. I have indicated my intention to refuse the command of my regiment. I am not yet ordered to duty, and so the matter stands. Before you receive this letter we shall probably have reduced Vicksburg, or have had another very bloody fight with the enemy in our rear. In the event of a battle my course will be plain; meanwhile I shall remain quiescent as circumstances will admit. Our late engagements have been very bloody, our losses heavy, the enemy must have suffered hugely in killed and wounded. I enclose a sketch of Vicksburg.

In respect to the order for consolidation of regiments, a healing order has been published by the President leaving the enforcement of the same discretionary with corps and department commanders. The generals have declined to permit it to apply to me, so I am held. My services will not be dispensed with till my body becomes useless. I have no option in the matter. Therefore you perceive I am unable to follow your advice if I would. I cannot resign. They will not muster me out. They will not grant me furlough.

Don't give yourself one moment's uneasiness about me. I am proud as the black knight with his visor down. My honor, thank God, is bright; no stain on my flag, though it is rent and torn and well-nigh riddled with balls. I will send on a copy of my official report and will write again very shortly.

The land has been devastated, desolated; the sufferings of the people, particularly the women, are terrible. Ladies in Vicksburg are now living in caves and holes in the ground to protect them from the unceasing fall of shot and shell from our guns. They disobeyed Pemberton's order and would not leave the doomed city. They could not believe we were so near at home. Their soldiers are reduced to one fourth rations.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 297-9

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, May 23, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,

Fifteenth A. C.

Camp Near V-burg, Walnutt Hills in The Rear

And Before Fortifications, May 23, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

“The bugles sing truce, and the night cloud has lowered,” and I have brief season to say that I am alive and unscathed, though since Thursday last, this being Saturday at one, I have been in a slaughter pen. I have this moment come from my hospital in the rear — my first duty after putting my troops under some sort of protection from fire, such as the ravines could give, was there. God help us — a fearful, fearful sight. I have seen agony and death in all its phases, but never before have as many of my own, my own good, true, leal hearts, draining off drop by drop their best blood in mortal agony, been bared before me. One of my pet colonels is shot through, maimed for life, if life is saved at all. Captains, lieutenants, non-commissioned officers, and so many private soldiers. My official reports are not all in, but I must lose out of my own command nearly three hundred, and these my bravest and best. God! what a charge it was! Talk of Balaklava — it sinks into insignificance. And they went on horseback, while we had to work in on foot, over tangled abattis, up precipitous hills, and against ramparts bristling with cannon and rifle; the pits behind filled with soldiers ready with the hand grenade, and under a constantly enfilading fire. You have read of hurling masses of men. I wish I could write — language utterly fails me. Not now at least. You will read I suppose something of it. We have been in battle for days, but the charges, the attempts to carry the place by assault, — then was the very pitch, the culminating grand climax and fever drama of battle, only horses were wanting. My men came on so gallantly; not one to falter. I turned back to see them swept down in ranks. Their comrades rushed over the bodies of the dead. I planted two stands of colors on the outer verge; these stand upon the crest . . . just behind. Men could not scale a perpendicular wall of fifteen feet. Men could not have gone up without guns in their hands and with no enemy in front. We did all mortal man could do — but such slaughter! Our division lost six hundred and eighty the first day; yesterday probably a thousand. We shall certainly lose fifteen hundred, and of those our bravest and best. My men are so gallant. I haven't a coward in my brigade. But if you could see their ghastly wounds, the faces of the dead. I have been on many battlefields, none like this, no such slaughter in so brief a space of time; not so many of my own to mourn. I ought not to write you now; ought not to write to any one in my present frame of mind, but I have an opportunity to send. I have just unbuckled my sword, and in the unnatural calm succeeding a bloody, bloody battle, pencil to you that I am well. Tomorrow, perchance, the jest and the wine cup, maybe the grave. I hope not the hospital. Oh, that horrid, horrid, damnable hospital! Rather a thousand deaths in the glorious enthusiasm of battle than an hour's torture on that table.

We cannot take Vicksburg by assault upon the rear through these fortifications. They are masterpieces of skill in military engineering. We shall approach by parallels, sap and mine. Our other great victories before reaching here you have heard of. If I can possibly get the leisure you shall have a detailed account of my march, and engagements up to the time of forming the first line of battle before the fortifications. God has spared my life. I hope for some good purpose. I cannot understand it. I have passed through a rain of bullets. Why is it? All around me have been cut down. So many, so much more valuable lives sacrificed and mine spared. I am ripe; I could go now. Oh! if I could only have got in the devils would have fled; they can't fight in open field; it is only behind breastworks and intrenchments. God help Vicksburg now, if our soldiers do get in, I shall be deaf and blind and one city will be sacked. We wax hot; the battle is not to the strong. I am running away in rhapsody. I am well, unhurt. I stand at the head of what is left of as brave a brigade as America can boast. It is known as the “fighting brigade,” and well has it sustained its reputation. I am proud; not quite exulting in victory, though we have driven the enemy to his stronghold. We have desolated his towns and villages, and of pleasant places have made a wilderness. He has fled before us like chaff before the wind; this is enough for you all to know now. I am well, exultant, my armor on, my face to the foe; even as I write bullets whistle and shells hurtle about me. To-morrow, if it comes to me, or the next day, I will write you in detail. I am writing very hurriedly now, in the midst of much excitement, perhaps not lucidly. I am sitting among the dead and must bury my dead, no shrift or shroud, and shallow grave. I only write to let you know I am safe and well. There are brigadier-generals here, with bright, new stars upon their shoulders, but without command, who are doubtless eagerly seeking my place. Perhaps I shall be compelled to give way to some one of them; if not, before I put my sword away something may be accomplished. So much of myself. You are this night reading the papers and trembling for my fate, so I write, and of myself, to stay your grief and apprehension. I am quite well. God grant you all are well. Pray for me now. My spirit is proud and high; it goeth before destruction; I cannot subdue. God bless you all.

Your affec. Son,

Tom.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 295-7

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, April 27, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,

Fifteenth A. C,

Camp Before Vicksburg, April 27, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

“Man proposes and God disposes.” In my letter of Saturday, I advised you all that we should march to-day, and that night, the heavens opened and the rains descended and the floods came and we remain in statu quo. Last night certain boats ran the blockade of Vicksburg in the midst of a tremendous thunder storm and as the cannon from the enemy's batteries belched forth death and destruction, the elemental war began and heaven's artillery pealed. All night the earth was convulsed, the ear deafened with sound and fury, and to-day the clouds are weeping, the ground lies drenched, and the trees hang their branches as if in despair. The storm is the forerunner of certain lengthened rains which may be expected here at this season, and will retard, if not materially disarrange, the plans heretofore matured. In my former letters I have indicated my want of confidence in their results, and have not yet seen fit to change my opinion. The order of march is rescinded and we await here further orders. You note in the papers frequent mention of the blockade and the running of the same, and for your edification, I will essay some description of what it means, for on one or two nights I have been close within sight and range on shore, and four nights ago in company with General Blair and some naval officers went down with the gunboats on a small steamboat tug, as it is called (literally a “tug of war”), to the scene of the conflict. The ground we occupy, as I have before informed you, is in the shape of a long and narrow horseshoe, and the distance from Young's Point, a landing directly opposite the mouth of the Yazoo River, to the furtherest point of toe of the horseshoe is about six miles. Immediately in front of this latter point are the Court House and principal buildings of Vicksburg, which is situate upon one of a range of high bluffs, one hundred and fifty feet above our level; these bluffs extend around us in the shape of a vast amphitheatre, and at regular intervals their heights are crowned with batteries, while at their base are placed what are called water batteries. A battery, as it is termed, is usually applied to a collection of several guns. The term is also used in speaking of the arrangements made of a parapet to fire over it or through openings in it. I don't want to bore you with technicalities, but a knowledge of them is so often erroneously presupposed that many otherwise good descriptions lose their force. Upon and around this amphitheatre, then, you must imagine one hundred batteries, and as they change from point to point about one hundred and sixty guns. The calibre of these guns is from six pounds, that of the light field piece, to one hundred pound Parrots; of these latter there are but two or three. The major part of their metal, so far as we can ascertain, is from ten to thirty pounds. Now you must know that the pointblank range of six-pounder guns is about six hundred yards, and that of twelve-pounder guns about seven hundred yards; that the chances of hitting a mark are less with pieces of small than of large calibre, owing to windage, the effect of wind, etc. That the rate of firing is about forty seconds a shot for field pieces, and about one minute for twelve-pounders, but that when the enemy is close at hand and deliberate aim not necessary, two rounds may be fired per minute. With these explanations you may have some faint idea of what running the blockade means, when I further inform you that our fleet of transports has been lying from Young's Point along shore down stream to within a short distance of the mouth of the canal; that they have been guarded by gunboats lying at the mouth and a short distance up the Yazoo; that when it is proposed to go around, a dark night is selected or sometimes in a moonlight night after the moon has set. The boats having been protected all round the machinery, in front, and along the side presented to the enemy, with cotton bales, bales of hay, etc., are divested as far as possible of their crew, a full head of steam is had on, and paddling slowly and cautiously till they arrive at the bend, full power is put on, and they go by as best they can, one at a time. The enemy is always on the lookout, and the signal gun is followed by continuous roar from all till the boats pass below Warrenton, five miles from the bend and the terminus of their fortifications. The heavens are lighted up by the beacon fires of the enemy and what are called calcium lights, so constructed as to throw broad and bright reflections on the water, and so point out the passing boats. The flashes of their cannon make almost a continuous line of bright light, the booming reports shake the ground and water, and make boats and houses tremble as by an earthquake. If the transports are convoyed, as has twice been done, by gunboats, these reply, and if the boats are struck, as frequently happens, the cotton is fired by exploding shells, bundles of bales blazing with lurid light are cast into the water, floating for miles, and whirled by the eddies. The river now appears one broad stream of flame, a boat is sunk, one or two are burning, sailors are seen making their way to shore, on boards or boats. The riflemen of the enemy line the shore, and the sharp report of small pieces with the waspish sing of the balls, is occasionally distinguished above all the din. They shoot at those endeavoring to escape; they fire whole volleys at the broadside of the steamer in the hope of killing one man. The pickets on our own lines pace rapidly upon their beat, they are within range, the reserves are upon the shore to give succor to the drowning; outside of this hell all is blackness and the darkness of night. These boats, in fine, go round; the others are helpless, hopeless wrecks. Day dawns, and the river is banked with smoke of the conflict. A body floats by, the entrails are all torn out; it is the pilot, who was cut across the belly by a passing shell. Few lives are lost, for few of the living attempted the voyage; the bodies, if found, will be buried; if not, will become food for the alligator or the gar. A few jokes through the day, and all is forgotten in the next order of march or preparations for another run. The boats are manned by volunteers; there are always enough for the purpose, and yet they know there is no glory to be gained, that their names, even, will never be known beyond their company or regiment, that they must pass within from one hundred and fifty to three hundred yards of the cannon's mouth; batteries manned by men hellbent on their destruction. “Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell,” with wild halloo and bacchanal song, a curse if they're hit, an oath if they escape, they go to destruction, mayhap, not to glory. So much for running the blockade. When I feel quite like it, I'll send you a map and explain the country about here, and tell you why we don't take Vicksburg. If anybody should ask you that question, just tell them it is because we have no ground to stand upon. It is all water and swamp for miles below us and every inch of the opposite side disputed. If we get a standpoint for operations, then we drive them, if needs be, at the point of the bayonet. We must wait the turn of events. I see the Admiral made a failure at Charleston. We have just got the news, and Congress with the President determines to cripple the army. Well, “those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.”

I wish I had something else to write to you about — something that would be more interesting than the army. I am in a close circumscribed sphere, with limited knowledge of the outside world; the 27th of the month, and my latest dates the 15th — of course I am far behind the age. Wife's poetry is very pretty, and Colonel Fisher was pleased to get it. I have just managed to secure his promotion. It will do him but little good; like the others I have loved and lost, he is doomed. I give him about one month more and then I think he will go under. There was another very fine and gallant young man in the regiment, Captain Williams. I had him promoted to Major and the very day his commission arrived, he was seized with small-pox and is now in the pest hospital. He was struck in the breast by a Minie-ball in the charge at Chickasas; he has been very weak since, and I think this is the last of him. I think I shall counsel Colonel Fisher to resign; his is a valuable life.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 291-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, April 25, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,

Fifteenth A. C,

Young's Point, La., April 25, 1863.

With us now is the excessive calm and quiet of a camp just preceding a march, and when all the regiments have marching orders; no hurry, no bustle, each man at his post and packing his own kit. Monday we move, first by transport, then the march. No tents, one blanket to each man. March light; that's the order. Sixty rounds of ammunition in the cartridge box and on the person. One hundred extra in the wagons, per man, that means business. The sun shines bright, but the soft South wind blows balmy and fans one's cheek like the breath of angels; nature is hushed in expectancy. Next the rattle of the cannon and the rolling of the drum.

We have news to-night that they are fighting in Tennessee, over our old battleground. There 'll be some fun this summer all around or I'm mistaken. Long time before the “thirsty Erinnys of this soil shall cease to daub her lips with her own children's blood, or trenching war to channel her fields and bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs of hostile paces.”

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 290-1

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, April 23, 1863

Headquarters Second Brig., Second Div.,

Fifteenth A. C,

Young's Point, La., April 23, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

By the enclosed order, you will see that I am virtually mustered out of the service. My regiment, by the accident and casuality of camp and bivouac, march and battle, having been reduced to less than one half of the maximum number prescribed by law. I only wait to be relieved from my command by order of the commanding general. The army is on the eve of what I consider a desperate enterprise. I believe the movement is forced by the folly and madness of politicians at home, (and by home I mean the pleasant places of safety far away from the bayou and the swamp, the slippery deck, the lonely picket,) to destroy the army or break down its leaders, which will be the same thing. I cannot fix the blame upon individuals, I do not speak from a sense of individual outrage. For a year past I have seen a splendid army crippled and its efforts rendered abortive by the insane policy of imbecile rulers. I foresee the loss of another year. The order alluded to will go farther to destroy the army than a campaign of five years with such soldiers as we have now trained.

What the course of the generals will be in my case, I do not know. I must go on, till an order comes relieving me from my command; of course in the field and anticipating an early engagement I cannot as a man of honor ask my discharge, which I have the right to claim forthwith. The order will be embarrassing. I do not propose to say what has passed between General Sherman, General Blair, and myself, regarding the matter. I had occasion the other day to test the temper of the soldiers. The whole division, three brigades and four batteries, were drawn up in hollow square to hear General Thomas announce the policy of the President. After he had concluded, General Sherman and General Blair, who were on the platform with him, followed with speeches, and as they had concluded, General Thomas invited the soldiers to call for whom they pleased. I think it would have done your heart good to hear some seven thousand voices ring out clear for Kilby Smith. There was no mistaking that sort of demonstration or the yell that greeted me as I mounted the platform. Still soldiers are fickle as the rest of mankind. To-morrow it may be somebody else, the pet of popular favor, to yield in his turn to his successor.

If I had the regiment alone, I would not hesitate a moment as to my course; with the brigade it is different and I must bide patiently. I had hoped to be brevetted, that chance is cut off. I have ceased to hope the appointment of brigadier-general. I have a '”heart for any fate.”

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 289-90

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, April 3, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div.,

Fifteenth Army Corps,

Camp Before Vicksburg, April 3, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

We are fully aware of the feelings toward Sherman. We know the antagonism against the Army of the Southwest. We know the efforts of traitors at home, and those who are not called traitors but who nevertheless would rejoice at the failure of his army to open the Mississippi, jealousy is rampant; war, more terrible civil war than we have yet known, will desolate the North as well as the South. My friends at home will remember my prophecies two years and one year ago. The rebellion, revolution, call it what you will, is not understood.

David Stuart has been rejected by the Senate. He is now neither general nor colonel, and is only waiting from day to day an order to relieve him from his command. Of course it will affect me and at once. He was my immediate ranking commander, and his place will be filled, I suppose, by Frank Blair. I shall not be immediately affected in my command — that is, I shall retain my brigade — but aside from this I am seriously and personally grieved. General Stuart has been my near, dear, and most intimate friend; his place as such to me in the army can never be filled. Of splendid genius, most liberal education, wonderful accomplishments, as scholar, orator, lawyer, statesman, and now soldier. With the courage and chivalry of a knight of old, and the sweetness and fascination of a woman, he won me to his heart, and no outrage . . . has affected me more than his rejection. I have no patience to write about it or think about it. The blow was unexpected by all of us. Generals Grant and Sherman, Stuart and I never thought of such a thing — could not guard against it. When I first reported at Paducah with my regiment to General Sherman, at my own request, for I had known him in Washington, I was brigaded with him. We went directly into service and together. We fought side by side at the battle of Shiloh, till he was wounded, when I assumed his command. We made all the advances to Corinth together and rode side by side in the long marches through Tennessee. We fought at Chickasas Bayou and at Arkansas Post, and advanced together at “Young's Point.” Many and many a long night's watch I made with him, many a bivouac in the open air through night and storm and darkness, always sharing our canteens and haversacks. Had I been killed he would have perilled life to save my body. Was my honor assailed, he the first to defend it; little I could ask of him he would not grant, and when I say to you that he was really the only real, true, thoroughly appreciative friend I have in the army who I care much about, you may imagine how irreparable is my loss. His character is not well understood in the community, because an unfortunate notoriety attached to him in the . . . case.

His own sufferings therein turned him prematurely gray in a very few months. His father was a partner of John Jacob Astor in the celebrated American Fur Company, and made for Astor ten millions of dollars. He was educated at Andover and in Boston, and was the protégé of Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis. He was brought into life very early, and married into the Brevoort family in New York, but being a great favorite of General Cass, was brought into politics in Michigan. At a very early age he was Prosecuting Attorney of Detroit, and immediately afterwards represented the Detroit district in Congress; there I made his acquaintance. He abandoned political life to take the solicitorship of the great Illinois Central Railroad, which gave him the control of the railway influence of the entire State and Northwest; and he abandoned stipulated salaries of eighteen thousand dollars per annum to enter the service, having expended upwards of twenty thousand dollars to put two regiments into the field. He has travelled largely in Europe and in Canada; his family are in the army and navy, he is exceedingly familiar with military life and has a most decided taste for it. His record is clean and bright, one to be proud of; he exerts a wider and better influence than any other man in this army, and why he should have been thrown over is a mystery.

The roses are blooming here and the figs are as large as marbles, the foliage is coming out green and the mocking birds hold high carnival. This is a famous country for flowers and singing birds. My horses are all well. If there was any safe opportunity, and I thought you could manage them, I would send two or three home; they are very high-strung and want a master's hand. Bugles and bayonets don't tend to depress the spirits of a good horse, and mine are the best in the army.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 283-5

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Walter Smith, March 16, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade,

Camp Before Vicksburg, March 16, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

I have changed quarters again and am now domiciled in a tolerably comfortable home under the same roof, and messing, with General Sherman. My despatches are delayed, and I now open my package to advise you of the receipt of your affectionate letter by Captain McCoy, who also brought me a small keg of whiskey, most acceptable.

I note your enclosures and all you say about my promotion. As you will perceive by the enclosed testimonial (not the copy I intended to send — a certified one from headquarters, and which for the present I intend to keep) that my record is as near perfection as anyone could hope. I am satisfied and can afford to wait for my country as long as she can wait for me. You have done everything, and I have not been backward. We need not worry about it.

General Grant and General Sherman have done everything for me they could — will do anything I ask that they can do. I know I am honored with the friendship of both and the entire confidence of one.

If you do write to General Grant, and I cannot say whether it would be advisable or not, I would rather the letter should not come through me, or know anything about it. I do hope you received General Sherman's noble reply to yours; it was due before the dates of your letter March 3d.

You must not suppose me reckless; I am not so. It is true I have been singled out for many a shot, and God alone has protected me, but I go upon the battlefield to do my duty; nothing more. I take no risks that the service does not demand. I think too much of my family to throw away my life.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 281-2

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Walter Smith, March 10, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps, On Board Str. "swallow,"

Near Young's Point, La., March 10, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

As you will notice from my dates from shipboard, I have changed somewhat the locus in quo since my last; fairly driven out by the high waters. The Mississippi proved rather too much for the engineer, and declined the narrow limits of the canal in paying tribute as called for, therefore we had to “take water” for fear of being drowned. I suppose the crevasses may be repaired, in which case we shall remain here till the experiment of the canal is fairly tested. When I have more time I will write you all about it.

I am glad you saw Sergeant White who, as lately from me, could make himself interesting. I send all such, of high and low degree, to you, because they can answer many a question and relate many an incident that would escape my notice or memory.

I enclosed you a copy of petition from my entire brigade for my promotion. I will send you copies of the endorsements of my commanding generals, which were very handsome. It has not yet been submitted to General Grant, who is, however, my warm personal friend and who will doubtless say as much as the others. Then so far as the army is concerned, to use General Sherman's own language, “my record is perfect.” I would not exchange it for that of the best puffed man in America. If promotion does not come, my family and friends at least will know that I deserve it; and I believe all proper effort has been made to secure it.

March 13, 1863.

I have taken up my quarters for the present with General Sherman; I found the boat unhealthy and disagreeable. I shall write again in a day or two.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 279-81

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, March 1, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps, March 1, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

You speak of my name not appearing in the Commercial; if our official reports were published by that sheet it would appear. I have sent you copies of both reports, of my immediate commanders, of the recent battles. I believe my name is sufficiently conspicuous in both; it is equally conspicuous in the report of General Sherman. Flattery is contemptible to both parties; all but flattery I think my commanders have given me. That my name does not appear in the public prints is simply because I will not resort to the usual means and appliances to place it there. If I was a merchant or an inventor of quack medicines, I would advertise to fill my purse, but I cannot, I do not know how to advertise my honor, and I am almost ashamed to seek for that preferment which I should be accorded without the asking. Even in the seeking, if I know myself, I am unselfish in intent, for I think, nay, know, that I can serve my country better in the position I want to have guaranteed to me — the one I now hold — than as the commanding officer of a regiment literally hacked and hewed to pieces in battle, to say nothing of accident or disease on the long and tiring march, the loathsome transport, the unhealthy camp. There are but few left of the brave hearts that followed me to the field. The graves of their dead are land-marks on eighteen hundred weary miles that their survivors are away — away from homes on the banks of the Miamies and the Sandusky, and the Scioto, and the Muskingum, from the farm and the village, from the workshop and the college, the railroad and the factory, all the way from the Ohio River to the shores of Erie. The whole State of Ohio, emphatically almost every county in it, was represented by my regiment, and such a regiment her borders will never raise again; leal hearts and hardy frames, young, joyous, full of fire and enterprise and patriotism ; and, God help me, how many are gone! Their bones bleach — bleach, that 's the word, for graves were shallow and coffins they had none at “Shiloh” — their graves dot Tennessee from Corinth to Memphis. Unshrouded and unanealed their ghastly corpses gibber in the moonlight on the banks of the Yazoo ; and at Arkansas Post the rude head boards tell where the dead braves of the “54th” rest. A handful are left — less than three hundred all told.

In respect to General Sherman and the press, I have written at some length in a former letter that you doubtless have before this received. Not the press, but the infernal scoundrels who prostitute it by making it a medium for their base designs upon individuals, the public, and the nation, does he propose not only to muzzle but destroy. General Sherman will live in history, and in the hearts of his countrymen when these wretched myrmidons shall have passed to infamy and eternal death. The reaction in his favor is sure to come. No man ever lived who, possessing his talents and energy, and purity of life and heart and purposes, failed to make his mark upon the times; and as sure as he now lives, he will illustrate his position, and cause his name to shine brightly on the page of history. His father-in-law, Mr. Ewing, quoted from Macaulay, and applied most appositely to him the sentence “fierce denunciation and high panegyric make up what men call glory”; both the former has General Sherman had in no stinted measure, but his true glory is in his native excellence; his full power has not yet been shown. O, Mother! if you had seen that man as I have seen him, if you could have sat by his side as I have sat, amid death and destruction, when the fate of a nation seemed to hang and . . . in my opinion did then hang on his word; had you watched him as I watched, and noted him exalted above materiality, towering above and beyond the sense of pain and fear of death ; had you scanned his eagle eye flashing and blazing with the fire of intellect, and in its comprehensive glance taking in and weighing the fate of thousands; had you known him as I knew him, win a great, a glorious battle, great as Waterloo, and which ought to have been decisive, and that would, within twenty-four hours of its close, have been decisive of the fate of the Republic had he been alone in command, you would spurn the lucubrations of the miserable drivellers, who like mousing owls are hawking at the eagle towering in his pride of place, as utterly unworthy a second thought. Have you ever known me deceived in my judgment of men so far as intellect is concerned? Where to-day are the friends and companions of my early youth and young manhood? Some are dead, but the good was not interred with their bones; they still live. One (you well know whom I mean) has made his opinions in the jurisprudence of Ohio classical; his faults, his vices, if you please, are forgotten; his graces, the strength of his glorious intellect, still illumines. Sherman is greater than he, and oh! far better, and trust me, when lesser lights go out or feebly glimmer in obscurity, his will shine out a bright particular star in the political firmament, a guiding star to those who come after him. If I could only approach him in example, you would have a son to be proud of. To me it is a matter of great pride that I have had the inestimable privilege of almost intimate association with him for a year past, by day and by night, in the peril of the field and the pleasures of the social board. I have never heard him utter a word that would bring the blush to the cheek of maiden purity. I have never known him insult his God; he is invariable in his just respect for the rights of others, and though he rarely smiles, though to the vast responsibilities with which he has been clothed, all the amenities of life with him have been sacrificed; still, with a cheering amiability of heart, he has been foremost in strewing the few flowers that give fragrance to the thorny pathway of the soldier.

As respects Vicksburg, I cannot, ought not, to write you much — time alone can tell what will be the result of our enterprise. All that men can do will be performed; the rest is with the God of battles, who holds in His hands the fate of nations. I send a little sketch which may serve to give you some faint idea of the topography of the country. By the bye, I have learned that the name “Yazoo,” in the Indian tongue, signifies death — “Yazoo River,” the river of death — and truly its waters are most abominable, dealing death to almost all who drank freely of them, while its stream ran red with the blood of those slain on its banks. You will note its course, the position of the bayous, and where our troops fought. The celebrated “Haines Bluff” and our present position toward Vicksburg.

I have written to you that I enjoyed a soldier's life, and indeed I do notwithstanding its privations and discomforts, and in this, that it is a life of excitement and free from the care that has heretofore been my portion. With you I mourn that I did not enter the military academy when I had the opportunity, and fit myself while young for a brilliant military career, for I feel that it might have been made brilliant. Youth wasted! well, why look back? That “might have been” weighs often upon me like an incubus. If I could only keep fresh my youthful feelings.

Colonel Spooner has probably been detained in his own State partly by family bereavement and partly by business. I shall hope he will be able to see you all before he returns. He is in my command, and can tell you a great deal about me. I am glad you were pleased with Major Fisher; he is a favorite of mine and I have always kept him near my person. He is possessed of a fine and cultivated mind, is amiable in character, but cool and brave in action. Was educated in his profession, of which he is a master, by General Rosecrans, and was promoted to his majority for his gallantry at Carnifex Ferry in Virginia, and assigned to my regiment. In case I am promoted, I design he shall command it. He met with a great affliction in the loss of his wife, a most lovely girl, and her child, within a year of his marriage, and his life has been clouded and embittered in consequence. I believe he is most sincerely attached to me, indeed I have been fortunate in making many friends in the service, and I doubt not an equal number of enemies.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 274-8

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, February 22, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth A. C, Young's Point, La.,

Opposite Vicksburg, Feb. 22, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

I send other papers, to show the condition and feeling of our army here towards General Sherman. The public have been systematically, basely, infamously imposed upon by the journals or their paid hirelings. God knows we have enough to endure from the apathy and indifference of friends at home to say nothing of traitors and open treason. You say “it may have been wise, but not well in General Sherman to muzzle the press.” You do not, cannot know all. General Sherman has had neither the power nor the will, to muzzle the press, but he has endeavored, and I am sorry to say, most unsuccessfully, to drive from among the camp followers of the army, the scoundrels, who by tergiversation, misrepresentations, and actual falsehood impose alike upon the credulity of the people and those who are honest among the conductors of the press. General Sherman has been actuated by the purest patriotism, and would not lend himself to the contemptible chicane and meanness by which certain individuals have been puffed up or written down. Therefore these villains have conspired and confederated together to slander him and villify his command.  One, . . . the correspondent of the New York . . . who wrote one of the most shamefully false articles of all that appeared (and all were false), describing the affair at Chickasas Bluffs, admitted to General Sherman, in my presence and in answer to my questions, that because General S. was known to be opposed to the presence of professional newspaper correspondents in the army, therefore he had determined to league with others of the fraternity who were here and revenge themselves by writing him down. That neither he nor they knew anything about him, but they had determined among themselves to renew the old slander of his insanity, because they supposed that would be most injurious to him. He also admitted that his letters were false, and based upon false information. This he did in writing, and was subsequently tried by court martial, his confreres, meanwhile, making their escape. His letter to the . . . was copied into the Vicksburg papers, and the enemy actually had the reading of it before we did, and became possessed of most valuable information to them. They had never regarded our falling back from the bluffs as a retreat, but supposed the withdrawal was stratagem on the part of Sherman, and cautioned their generals against the result. Immense plans were disarranged, and in consequence of their publications much public treasure has been wasted and many lives lost. We know that very many of these newspaper correspondents are paid spies. We know that many of them are in certain interests, some in that of cotton speculators, some in that of gold brokers, some paid by combinations of bankers, who all use the intelligence they give the people for the furtherance of specific views. Hence you perceive the mischievous tendency of the productions of these canaille against the public weal, as well as the government, but aside from this a far more terrible effect is produced in the demoralization of the army and the shaking of the confidence of the soldiers in their leaders. The withdrawal of the army from Chickasas was regarded as one of the most brilliant military achievements of the war, by the army. Officers were enthusiastic and it was regarded as equal to a victory in its effects upon the minds of the men. That the army was . . . in splendid condition for battle was evidenced by their conduct at Post Arkansas, immediately thereafter. Yet no sooner were the newspapers received than their spirits were dampened and their ardor cooled by the first intelligence they had received, that they had been defeated and that their favorite general was in disgrace (for they may say what they please in Ohio, General Sherman is the favorite of this army and to-day is the hero of the West in fact, whether he has the reputation or not). Very well! from whom does the information come to depress the feelings and outrage the sensibilities of the army? — not from the public at home, but through the public journals, who, to use the mildest terms, have been imposed upon by at most five or six individuals, each one of whom is infamous in character, and because of his infamy, is fit for his nefarious trade. They find themselves cramped, and with a fiendish malignity, gratify their private revenge at the expense of a nation. To pull down Sherman they would sacrifice his army, to sacrifice that, they would betray the commonwealth. . . . Some of the journalists have a character to sustain, these have none, and it is these that should be scourged like hounds from every corps, division, and regiment of our army, whenever or whatever its service. We endorse General Sherman fully in this matter, and I refer you to the enclosed document marked “A,” a copy of the original which was signed by all the officers of the “Old Division” with enthusiastic alacrity. The public are entitled to and should have early information of the movements of our armies, when such information may be transmitted without notice to the enemy, but all such information should be under supervision and censorship, for the most obvious reason, and no personal allusion to the character or behavior of any officer or soldier should be permitted; what that leads to the most obtuse can see. . . . For my record I point with what I believe is an honest pride to the official reports of my commanding generals, now part of the archives of the nation, and I would not exchange the autograph letters of General Sherman which I now enclose to you, for all or any of the newspaper fame that I have seen bestowed on any man.

If I succeed in securing my promotion through legislative channels, it is well; I think I deserve it. I think it not only due to me from my country, but that it will enable me to render her more effectual service. I do not ask it as a favor — I demand it as a right; and I am admonished that without the demand the right will not be accorded. Therefore, and properly, the action of my personal and political friends to bring me properly to the attention of the appointing power, to urge upon the Senate the propriety of remembering those who are placing their lives in peril to save the Republic, to remind the President of the propriety of selecting for his generals those who are most competent to lead his armies in the field. Whether I receive my promotion or not you and my friends will have been made to know that my immediate commanding generals think I deserve it, and that I have the confidence of my brother officers with whom I have served so long and so arduous a campaign.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 271-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, February 4, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps,

“young's Point,” Before Vicksburg, Feb. 4, 1863.

My Dear Mother:

I could write much on these army matters and the course of events here if it were proper for me to do so; but, of course, my lips are sealed and my pen tabooed. You must rest assured that all the newspaper accounts you have seen of the late battles, and the movements of the Army of the Mississippi, are basely, utterly false. So much has been admitted by the correspondent of the New York . . .  in my presence to General Sherman. Courts martial will develop strange facts. All that you read in the newspapers will only serve to mislead you and confuse your mind. Great plans cannot be revealed. Few of the generals themselves know them. The newspaper men, dangerous to the army as spies giving information to the enemy, closely restricted and carefully watched, nevertheless manage to mingle undetected with the residue of the horde of base camp followers who are always at the heels of the army. Provoked at the restrictions placed upon them, by common agreement they hound down with infamous slander the generals from whom the orders against them emanate. Thus the scoundrel . . . the correspondent of the New York . . . has admitted by letter to General Sherman, as well as verbally in my presence, not only that his article was false, and malicious, and based upon false information received from parties interested in defaming General Sherman and his command, but that he renewed the old story of his insanity for the purpose of gratifying private revenge. . . .  Our country is in an awful condition ; we are verging rapidly upon anarchy. Government has almost ceased to exist save in name. An immense army will be demoralized and crumble by its internal opposing forces. A united people have only to fold their arms and calmly bide the event. God help us, and forgive that political party which sowed the wind, the fruits of which we now reap. This much and this alone I have to say. A soldier has naught to do with politics; the nearer he approaches a machine, an animal without volition, the more valuable he becomes to the service, and perhaps the greater part of our present difficulties grow out of the fact that our soldiers are too intelligent, for they will talk and they will write, and read the papers. Our Army of the Mississippi, and particularly our gallant “Old Division,” have the firmest faith and the most implicit reliance upon Sherman and Grant. Sherman is a splendid soldier, a most honorable gentleman, a pure patriot. Would to God we had more like him to battle for the right. I earnestly pray God he may not be sacrificed. This new infusion I know nothing about. McClernand has been sent off; he is out of place here. Brigadiers have come and are coming. I shall soon be superseded by some one of them, or General Stuart will be compelled to give way and I to him. No change of this kind will be cheerfully submitted to by my command. I have the most substantial evidence that I possess their affection and confidence. You speak about my resigning; it would be utterly impossible for me to resign, if I desired to do so, and an effort on my part to have my resignation accepted would ensure my lasting disgrace. An officer cannot resign in the face of the enemy. But I do not want to resign. With all its terrible hardships and privations, greater than tongue can tell, or pen describe, the life of a soldier is dear to me. I love its dangers and excitements. I am proud of, and delighted with the applause which even a temporary success meets. I am relieved of the miserable, wretched chicanery that surrounds the civilian. I rejoice in the free air. I take kindly to the nomadic life that a field service compels. The romance of chivalry is realized, the ideality of my youth and early manhood brought into actual being. The war horse and the sabre, the glitter of the soldier's trappings, the stirring strains of martial music, the flashing eye, the proud, high bearing, the bivouac fire, the canteen, the song and jest, the perilous scout, the wary picket, the night march, all familiar — this is my life. What I read of, till my cheeks tingled and my eyes suffused, I now do and my comrades do, and like Harry Percy, feel able to “pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.”

How long we shall stay here, God knows; it is a horrid place now, what it will be in the spring, none can tell; a long fiat swamp a foot above or below — I can't tell which —  the level of the Mississippi, which we are fighting to keep out. That portion not covered with a growth of brake and timber is completely so by cockle burr, that grows to an enormous height and presents an almost impenetrable mass of those little prickly burrs that get into the manes and horsetails, the same kind we have at home, but fearfully exaggerated in size and numbers. It is not quite the season, but after a very little while we shall be enlivened by the pleasant society of alligators and mocassin snakes, mud turtles and their coadjutors. Meanwhile we have every conceivable variety of lice and small-pox, measles and mumps, and other diseases incident to women and children. There is a species of moss you have often heard of and which abounds in this climate — a long hanging and beautiful moss when seen close at hand, but which waving in the forests presents a dreary funereal aspect. It is an article of commerce, and when properly prepared is a material for the stuffing of mattresses. Of course the men, when we camped near where it grew, eagerly sought it to make their beds, and were much disgusted to find it filled with lice. It has to be boiled and bottled to clean it from vermin. So, with the moss, and the transport boats filthy in the extreme, many of which had been hospital boats, the troops were pretty thoroughly infected with the plagues of Egypt, all but the frogs; and the first sun, I reckon, will make them tune their pipes.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 268-71

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith and Eliza Walter Smith, January 30, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps,

“Young's Point,” Before Vicksburg, Jan. 30, 1863.

My Dear Wife And Mother:

I have your letters, mother's of the 15th and 18th and wife's of 22d inst. I can imagine your anxiety, and regret you could not sooner have heard of my safety and well being. But you were not born to be a soldier's wife and mother. You must keep up brave hearts; none of us can die but once; as well in the battle as in bed. I hope my life may be spared to comfort you for many years to come, and assure you that I will not unnecessarily, or otherwise than in the strict performance of my duty, expose a life dearer to others than it deserves, far dearer to them than to me, and you must write me cheeringly. Give me words of comfort and good cheer. We need comfort, for we are in a pretty tight place at the present writing; camped just in front of that famous ditch of Butler's that the papers made so much fuss about last year and in the full view of Vicksburg, about two miles, including the width of the river, from my tent. As I write, its white towers and steeples and window panes gleam in the light of the setting sun. It's the Gibraltar of America, and we shall have a good time taking it, I guess; but nil desperandum; we shall try. I believe I wrote you some account of the affairs at Chickasas Bayou, and at Post Arkansas. My troops behaved remarkably well in both engagements, though I lost rather more than my share. I stand well enough with the army here, but have not had the luck to do anything brilliant enough to make me brigadier, except so far as they can give it to me by brevet. I do most earnestly want the rank, and think I have honestly earned it, but suppose I must exercise patience and wait. My health is pretty good. Indeed I always feel well while the weather is cool and the past three or four days have been lovely. In the immediate personal superintendence of large works, I am in the saddle constantly.

My horses are peculiar, and I ride hard in battle and latterly with a large command have had to spread myself over the field. This was a good deal the case at Chickasas. Morgan L. went over almost the first pop, while I had run the gauntlet half a dozen times before him and was over the same ground where he fell for hours afterwards and always under fire. The newspaper reports are all false; there is scarcely any coloring of truth to them. I am always confounded with Morgan L. and his brother Giles A. I am utterly lost in the obscurity of the name. My only salvo is in the official reports; there alone can I be identified, and in an official report the bare detail alone is permitted. I have sent you two from my immediate commanding officer. General Sherman's I have not yet seen, but am told that I receive therein flattering mention. I have tried hard to win my spurs, but my heart has been made sick by the terrible injustice of the public prints. I have nobody in particular to blame; I don't know that I have a single enemy among the newspaper reporters; yet I am always ignored. You must take the published stories of the correspondents with very great allowance. They are never eye-witnesses of the scenes they attempt to describe. This I assure you is true, and a moment's reflection will give you the reason why. They have no business in battle; there is no position they could occupy. In the din and confusion and smoke and hurly burly, the assault, the charge, the cannonading, the rattling of musketry, the changing front of long lines of troops, the rapid advance, the quick retreat for change of position, the trampling of cavalry, and artillery and orderlies' horses — where would the newspaper reporter, with his pen and wit or pencil and paper be? No, they are far off to the rear, picking up items from stragglers, and runaways and the riff-raff of the camp and army; with just enough knowledge of the ground and the main facts to form a basis, they draw upon their imagination for fancy sketches, and paint their words in glaring colors. My regiment did go in where none dared to follow, and by my superior officer was withdrawn after the performance of the most heroic valor. It was the astonishment of the army, and no mention is made of it. The 8th Missouri was not under fire at any time during the fight at Chickasas. Its former colonel, the present major-general, was wounded by a sharpshooter before the engagement fairly began. See the reports and the absurdity. But I won't dilate upon what you cannot well understand, and in which your heart cannot possibly be.¹

________________

¹ Readers of Field Marshal, Lord Roberts's interesting book, will see that trouble with the correspondents of newspapers besets military commanders in these later days also. There is great similarity in the expression of his views in relation to this subject in his account of the Afghanistan campaign.

"No one could be more anxious than I was to have all details of the campaign made public. I considered it due to the people of Great Britain that the press Correspondents should have every opportunity for giving the fullest and most faithful accounts of what might happen while the army was in the field . . .  What to my mind was so reprehensible in this Correspondent's conduct was the publication in time of war, and consequent excitement and anxiety at home, of incorrect and sensational statements founded on information derived from irresponsible and uninformed sources, and the alteration of telegrams after they had been countersigned by the recognized authority, the result of which could only be to keep the public in a state of apprehension regarding the force in the field, and what is even more to be deprecated, to weaken the confidence of the troops in their commander." — Forty-One Years in India, vol. ii., p. 166.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 266-8

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, January 20, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,

Fifteenth Army Corps,

Steamer “Sunny South,” January 20, 1863.

My table is covered with orders, letters, plans, and maps, and my head full of business to the limit of its capacity, therefore, I propose to abandon business and for the small balance of this night, devote myself to you, my dear mother. This is the thirtieth day of this memorable expedition, a month has passed away since we left Memphis, a month fraught with startling events. Many a poor fellow has lost the number of his mess, and we are yet on the verge of the consummation of the great event. If you will look at the map, and running your eye down the Mississippi River seek a point first below the dividing line between Arkansas and Louisiana, say eighty-five miles above Vicksburg, you can form an idea of about the place where my headquarters, the Sunny South, is now plowing her way southward. Tomorrow we propose to debark at or near Milliken's Bend near the mouth of the Yazoo River, and this may be my last opportunity for some time to come, of writing home; the opportunity of sending, at any rate, is doubtful. I can only hope it will reach you, as I hope that other letters, cast as waifs upon the water, have reached, or will reach their haven at last.

I am in good condition in all respects for the next battle. The weather for the past two or three days has become delightful, neither too warm nor too cold, balmy and at the same time bracing. These southern winters are far preferable to those of Ohio and probably more healthful. The river is nearly bankfull, an immense wide expanse of water. We are passing beautiful plantations, with their long rows of neat, whitewashed negro quarters, every house deserted. Now and then we come to the cane, then the cottonwood. Sometimes, when we get to a long reach in the river, the view is beautiful; one great fleet of steamboats, keeping their regular distance in military style, sometimes as many as sixty in sight, the steam wreathing up in fantastic forms, the spray from the wheels forming rainbows in the bright sunlight; now and then a strain of martial music or the refrain of a cheery song from the soldiers. Soldiers are much like sailors in this regard; they will have their song and fiddle and dance, and we encourage it, because it keeps the devil down.

I notice I have had a good many friends killed and wounded at Murfreesboro — glorious spirits gone up as avant couriers.

Last night my own little fleet ran up one of the numerous chutes of this part of the river on the Arkansas side, and not long after we had landed I was boarded by a substantial-looking planter with a request for a guard to his house, as he had ladies in his domicile. I of course extended the desired protection and took occasion in person to see my orders carried out. Of course the hospitalities of the house were offered, and I passed a couple of hours very pleasantly in the society of the four ladies, who did the honors, a mother and three daughters, very fair samples of real Southern plantation society.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 264-5

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, January 7, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade,

Second Division, Second Army Corps, Army Of Miss.,

On Board Steamer "Sunny South," Jan. 7,1863.

My Dear Mother:

We are on the broad bosom of the Father of Waters, the shimmering moonlight streaming bright on the glittering waves that dazzle in reflection. I am surrounded by gay officers, the jest and the laugh and the song go round, but I get a little apart and look out into the night, and alone, with no commune for my thoughts save sweet memories of my mother. Two natures, two distinct beings seem blended in mine. Blood, carnage, and exposure to the elements, the dull and dripping rain at night, sapping the creeping marrow in my bones, the swamp, the forest, the noontide heat, prolonged endurance of fatigue, and wakeful watching, intimate converse with gladiatorial soldiers, the harsh reproof and bitter curse (alas, too familiar to my own lips,) the forcing of fierce and maddened spirits to my own will, at times as fierce and maddened as theirs, the groan, the imprecation, oftener than the prayer of the dying; the contorted limbs and fixed stare of the dead, who have gone to their death at my bidding — all this, and more, more than I dare to think or to write, makes me feel as he must have felt who fell from heaven. When plunged in the abyss of reflection, I look for my pure, bright angel, with white and fleecy wings, hovering above me, her outstretched arms, her beckoning hand, her mild and lovely eyes entreating, the mother of my early days. I change, even in thought with her. I become a child again, like the little child I used to see in some of the editions of the '”Common Prayer,” with the leopard, and the lion, and the lamb, that I used to ponder over instead of listening to the service long years ago, when I sat in the quaint old church. The Bible pictures all come back to me, the clouds that I used to watch through the open windows, when the Sunday was pleasant, shaping themselves into queer and fanciful forms, when I used to wonder if God really sat among them, as upon His throne, and if the little cherubims and seraphims, all head and wings as they were lined above the pulpit, were really all about him crying aloud, and if he ever spanked them for so doing, and from these child dreams I passed to others; soft and pleasant fancies flit through my mind; music and the bright fireside, whispering voices, pure, sweet, holy love, the greeting and the parting, the hopes and fears. My spirit changes; I lean over the top-rail and gaze into the deep and flowing river, to wonder if the scene about me is real, if I may not go to you within the hour and lay my head upon your breast and cry myself to sleep, with your dear hands clasped in mine. You are curious to know where I am and what I have been doing, and I can only give you commonplace descriptions of fleets and the great broad river, martial music, startling the wild fowl from the well-nigh deserted shores, the debarkation of the army, the bivouac, the attack at night, the fiercer conflict that raged for two days, the storming of the “imminent and deadly breach,” the heroism, the slaughter of the soldiers, the withdrawal to the transports — all this you will hear about in any penny paper, told with all the variations far better than my pen can portray, and your heart will sicken that such things can be. You will hear that my own band acquitted themselves nobly, that nineteen of them bit the dust. Stancher followers no man ever had. They say I did my devoirs. I don't know. The blood gets into my head in the hour of battle and I rage, though men say I am cool. The Generals have given me the command of a brigade. . . .  If I live, I shall hope to gather laurels; you shall not be ashamed of your son. I have a splendid command, five fine regiments of infantry, two full batteries of artillery (one of which is the famous Taylor battery of Chicago, and the best of the service), and a squadron of horse, nearly five thousand men, and the very flower of the army. The treason of these Southerners is almost atoned for by their dauntless courage; but if the political generals don't succeed in taking my command from me, they shall meet a “foeman worthy of their steel” the next time we are in battle array. Remember I am writing to my mother, and if an indirect trail of egotism or vanity is suffered to creep into my plain letters, forgive me.

De Quincey, in his confessions of opium eating, says, speaking of his reveries, “Often I used to see after painting upon the blank darkness, a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. And I heard it said, or I said it myself, these are English ladies, from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the wives and daughters of those who met in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage or by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August, 1642, never smiled upon each other again, nor met but in the field of battle; and at Marston Moor, Newberry, or at Naseby cut asunder all ties of blood by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendships.”  One of my lady friends in Memphis gave me a copy, and in casually turning its leaves to-day, the quotations seemed strangely apt to the unhappy condition of our own bleeding land.

I have said if the political generals do not take my command away, — a batch of them have come down with McClernand, who, you will perceive by one of the accompanying copies, has divided the command with General Sherman; two or three of them are educated military men, and have great reputation as soldiers; an effort was made to place one of them over my command; it may yet be successful, though they tell me my popularity with officers and men is very great, especially since the last battle; that some of them declare they won't fight under another leader, especially under an importation. The advent of McClernand is deprecated. What the result may be I do not know. General Sherman is pretty firm about the matter, now, and I do not think will go behind his order. The Administration is treating me badly, but “Time at last sets all things even, and if we do but watch the hour,” etc. Meanwhile, in my little authority, you must imagine me as I really am, surrounded by very considerable state. My staff consists of an adjutant, two aide-de-camps, four clerks, six mounted orderlies, and as many of a detachment of cavalry as I may choose to detail for personal escort; this, with my body servants, makes up a very considerable menage, and as I retain my own old regiment as a body guard, I move with very considerable personal force. My colors float very proudly. You know I was always given to the taking on of airs, and thereby exciting envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, which with evil speaking, lying, and slandering, are always rife in the army. Therefore, there will be many attempts at assassination (figuratively speaking, I mean), and these political pets will be after me. Whatever I've got has been literally dug and hewed out with the point and edge of the sabre, and the devil of it now is that I have to fight front and rear. I had a bitter enemy in . . .  who is now hors de combat, having been badly shot in the late engagement. I think he’ll die; he won't sit on horseback for a year anyhow. I had disposed of him pretty effectually before he went under.

I know of none other now of any consequence, but the higher one gets up the more he makes of them. It's damned hard they won't back me at Washington.

I received a day or two since a very beautiful letter from Mrs. Sherman, in which she spoke of “having had the pleasure of seeing my very elegant and charming wife and mother.”

I enclose General Stuart's official report, which you may show to as many friends as you please, though it should not be published. Also the order assigning me to command. It is not difficult for some people to get the rank of brigadier, but the same find it devilish hard to get the command to follow the rank, and are proud enough of two meagre regiments. Mine is a young army; I am immensely proud of it.

I won't write myself to ask for promotion. I don't want it unless it comes regularly and through my commanding general, but inasmuch as I have been clothed with the command, and that against the claims of rank; inasmuch as I must assume immense responsibility, expense, and exposure without commensurate reward, therefore, I think, I am right to urge through my friends for what is only my due.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 254-7