1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: June 29, 1862

Headquarters 1st Brig. Cav. Army of the Miss.,

Rienzi, Miss., June 29, 1862.

What the deuce this army is trying to do, I cannot guess. Buell's corps moved off in an easterly direction two weeks since. Grant's is, I think, between Corinth and Memphis, and the headquarters of Pope is about four miles south of Corinth, while his army is scattered for 75 miles west of here. The left wing, Plummer's and Jeff C. Davis' divisions moved through here yesterday, bound for Holly Springs, 60 miles due west. General Ashboth's reserve division, stationed here, have thrown up quite extensive works, fronting the enemy, who are not in any force, within 75 miles of us. Our cavalry division is doing the outpost duty on a line 40 miles long, running east and west, and about 20 miles south of Corinth, with videttes out eight or ten miles further, and scouting parties go 15 miles below the videttes. We are losing about two men a day skirmishing. I noticed a statement in the papers that 20,000 new-made graves could be seen between Corinth and the Tennessees, caused by the swamp miasmas, etc., during our approaching the enemy. We don't believe that there have been 400 deaths from disease since the battle of Shiloh, and 250 will cover the number of deaths from wounds received since that fight. You know there have been an immense number of sick men furloughed, but that was to satisfy the State governnors more than necessity. For instance, John Shriner went home on sick furlough and you know his condition. There were thousands of such cases. I think the health of our army never was better than now. I notice that our Illinois troops stand this climate very much better than the men from Michigan and Iowa. Do not think we have more than one-third the sickness in our regiment that the troops from the last named States have. There is a prospect of our brigade's being ordered to Ripley this week. I am well satisfied here, but have no doubt will flourish equally well there. They charge outrageous prices for eatables throughout the country. Half-grown chickens 25 cents each, eggs 25 cents per dozen, buttermilk 20 cents per quart, etc. We keep a cow for our headquarters, though, that supplies us with milk, and we have six hens that lay as many eggs every day, and my colored boy plays sharp and buys new potatoes, peas, beans, etc., for half what I can, on the strength of his chumming it with colored folks of the farms. There was a regiment raised in this country that are now flourishing in Camp Douglas. A lady played the piano and sang for me last night that has a husband and brother residing in said camp. Mourning goods are quite fashionable here, and I see limping around town several that lost a limb, each, in some of the early battles. There are a few that I have met who were taken prisoners by our troops, one of them at Manassas, and paroled. Deserters come in yet every day. An intelligent man that belonged to an Arkansas regiment came in yesterday. He says that he thinks the main body of the Southern Army started for East Tennessee, via Chattanooga the day after he left them. Breckenridge's brigade has gone to Vicksburg, etc. I would like to send you some of the late orders issued by Rosecrans, if it were not so much trouble to copy them, in relation to police of camp and discipline. He looks after the health of men more than any general I have served under

People here are very indignant about our taking all their provisions away from them, and then appealing to the North to contribute to keep them from starving. There is some truth in the idea, but not much. They certainly do need eatables here, and the North will have to furnish them free or take scrip. Dinner: Blackberry jam, pie and raw berries. Oceans of them here. Day before yesterday the Rebels surprised one of our picket parties and captured 1st and C men, and yesterday they captured another. But Company K (Nelson's) followed them 12 or 15 miles and I think got the prisoners back with one Rebel, several horses and lots of traps. I got a letter from you a few days since relating the affecting parting scene between those spirits who left home, etc., for three months, and the sweet spirits that wept so heart breakingly thereat. I think your ideas were not unsound in regard to the parting scenes, and if you had boxed a few ears and pulled a little hair belonging to the ninnies that so abused the noble art of crying that day, you would have been excusable in my eyes. I must take a nap as quick as my boy comes back to keep the flies away.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 108-10

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: June 6, 1862

Headquarters 1st Brigade Cavalry Division,

Camp near Boonville, Miss., June 6, 1862.

I am leading an inglorious life now, nothing to do but the brigade writing and ride with the colonel when he goes out on business. The only time I am on the fighting list is when the brigade goes out, and that is very rarely, and only when reconnoisances in force are made, and there is seldom any fighting done then. General Hamilton's whole division marched by our tent to-day and it was a splendid sight; I had thought that I'd never want to see any more troops but his division looked so splendidly, that I really enjoyed the sight of them. I knew that they were only marching into a new camp, but they all had got the idea that they were going into a fight and they were in grand spirits. I never saw the men look as healthy as they do now. One reason is those who were sick have been all left at the river and the weakly ones do not pretend to march in the ranks this hot weather. We are within one hundred yards of General Pope's headquarters and there are continually a lot of brigadiers passing. They nearly always ride on the gallop, and with the aids and escorts all told, say 60 in number to each general, they make quite a dashing appearance. Rosecrans, Buell, Granger, Smith, Sherman, T. W., Plummer, Paine, Hamilton and Pope all rode by at one time to-day.

All the companies we have had out to-day report skirmishing with the enemy We lost two men prisoners, some wounded and several horses. Got some prisoners. The enemy are in some force six miles from here. They are dodging all around us. Rumor says to-day that Buell with his army is going down through Alabama to Montgomery. Pope will move slowly after the enemy through Mississippi, and Thomas will go across to Memphis and down the river to co-operate with Butler in a movement through Southern Mississippi. 'Tis probably the plan of some cuss in the ranks. I wish for one day that you could hear all the camp rumors. They would make a remarkable book.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 97-8

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: April 4, 1862

Camp, near Point Pleasant, Mo., April 4, 1862.

I received your last letter within three days after it was mailed, and praised Uncle Sam duly therefor. Our regiment has had a run of bad luck since we've been here. Two men killed on the plank road, two wounded at same place, two killed by falling trees in a storm of night of April 1st, and a dozen wounded, and yesterday one drowned while watering his horse in the swamp, and our horses dying off very fast of horse cholera. The latter is a serious thing in a regiment were the men own the horses themselves. For they (or nearly all of them) cannot buy others. Most of them are still owing for the horses they have. The positions of troops and state of the war generally remains the same here as it has been ever since we took Madrid. Main body of our forces at that place. Five regiments here under Plummer and five seven miles further down the river with Palmer. That is as far down as we can go on this side for the swamps. Between here and Madrid we have batteries every three miles and the Rebels have rather more on the opposite side. Both are right on their respective banks and have their flags fluttering their mutual hatred in each others faces. We can see them very plainly without the aid of a glass. The Rebel gunboats lie just below our lower battery and 'tis rumored to-night that several new ones have arrived from Memphis or New Orleans.

This fuss about “Island 10” I think is all humbug. Don't believe they have attacked it yet. It don't sound like Foote's fighting. Look on the map and see what a nice pen there is between the rivers Tennessee and Mississippi. Don't it look that if Grant and company can whip them out at Corinth, that we'll have all the forces at Memphis and intermediate points to “Island 10” in a bag that they'll have trouble in getting through? If they run it will be into Arkansas, and they can take nothing with them but what their backs will stand under. Seems to me that the plans of the campaign are grand from the glimpses we can get of them and have been planned by at least a Napoleon. Certain it is we are checkmating them at every point that's visible. I firmly believe the summer will see the war ended. But it will also see a host of us upended if we have to fight over such ground as this. It is unpleasantly warm already in the sun. It's 10 p. m. now and plenty warm In my shirt sleeves, with a high wind blowing, too. We had an awfu1 storm here to commence April with. We are camped just in the wood's edge and the wind struck us after crossing a wide open field and knocked trees down all through our camp; killed First lieutenant Moore, one private, seriously wounded Captain Webster and a dozen men. During the storm I though[t] of our fleet at “Island 10” and it made me almost sick. Don't see how they escaped being blown high and dry out of water.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 76-8

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: March 24, 1862

Point Pleasant, Mo., March 24, 1862.

It's only 9 a. m., and didn’t get to bed until 2 this morning, so if I do not talk rational you will excuse me. That isn't the excuse either. I rode 50 miles between 9 a. m. yesterday and midnight over roughest road. Two hundred of us were sent out after that d----d Jeff Thompson. We exchanged shots with his pickets 20 miles from here, and chased them four miles farther. The last eight miles was a pike only eight feet wide, thrown up through an immense swamp, and planked. The water came so close to the planks that there was not-a place in-the whole eight miles where a horse dare step off the plank. The total of all the unusual sights I ever saw wouldn't begin to count one in effect where that road and swamp will ten. There are two good sized rivers running through the swamp but they have to be pointed out to you before you can see them, or rather distinguish them from the rest of the swamp. .When we first saw these pickets they were tearing up a culvert. We hurried up and after each side fired four or five rounds they ran. No one hurt here, although the distance was not more than 60 yards. Andy Hulit, my sergeant major and myself were the advance guard, but I have no carbine, and did not get to shoot, but this didn't seem to make any difference to them for they threw buckshot round me quite promiscuously. Well, we fixed up that bridge and pressed on, but they tore down so many bridges that we could go but slowly. Just before the fight I had dropped back a dozen files to get out of building any more bridges, and when our boys saw the secesh, they had just finished destroying another. The horses couldn't cross it, but the boys dismounted and hurrying across on foot, made them take to the swamp in water waist deep, where they hid themselves behind logs, vines and a kind of high grass that grows in bunches as large as a currant bush. When they had concealed themselves to their notion, they commenced firing at us, and of the first four of our boys over the bridge (Andy Hulit led them), three were down, wounded in a minute. We then charged (on foot) right into the brush and water, some of the boys up to their armpits, and made them scoot. They did not number over 20 but their advantage was enormous. We dropped two of them certain, and — I don't think any more. Of four of our men they wounded, three were Company L boys. The two Cockerel brothers, Mathew and Royal, and Eugene Greenslit. The other was from Company A. The Company A boy and Mat Cockerel died before we got them to camp. Royal has a flesh wound in the arm, and Greenslit is shot in the foot, both slight wounds. We drove the Rebels clear off, and captured two horses, and all their blankets, overcoats etc. About 15 miles out we came to Little River. While the major was examining the bridge, we saw a half dozen men running through a swamp on the other side. Over the bridge we went, and into the mud and water after them. We got them all. I captured a couple in a thicket. Andy Hulit came up a few minutes after and we had work to keep a lot of boys from shooting them, while we were taking them back to the river. Well, that was a pretty rough trip and I don't hanker after another like it, although the excitement is rather pleasant too. But being set up for a mark on a road where there is not a sign of a chance to dodge, and having the marksman completely concealed from you, and this other fix of letting them throw shells at you when your carbine won't carry to them, sitting on horseback too, I wish it understood I'm opposed to and protest against, although I never think so until I get back to camp. I don't think that I ever get a bit excited over firing, but I know that I don't look at danger the same when under fire that I do when in quarters. We are all well and I'm getting fat every day. It bores considerably here to think that that one horse Island No. 10 won't come down and surrender like a “gem'men.” Some of the officers here think that we'd better be getting out “o’ this,” but I propose to let Pope work out the salvation of this division. We started from Commerce in General Hamilton's division, were put in General Granger's at Madrid, and are now in General Plummer's. Well, I'm going to do a little sleeping.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 71-3

From The Second Iowa Cavalry

Camp Near New Madrid, Mo.,
Saturday, April 12, 2 P.M.

ED. GAZETTE. – We shall be off before you receive this – I hope in Memphis. General Pope’s army here is divided into six divisions – first under command of Gen. Paine; 2nd Gen. Stanley; 3rd, Gen. Hamilton; 4th, Gen. Palmer; 5th Gen. Plummer; 6th, Gen Granger. Col. Elliott is in command of the 2nd Brigade of the 6th Division, composed of the 2d Iowa Cavalry, 2d Michigan Cavalry, and two squadrons of the 1st Ill. Cavalry; Lt. Col. Is in command of the regiment.

The second Battalion of the 2d Cavalry is now leaving for the boats. The river is lined with transports; all are to be aboard to-night, and the fleet moves down the river early in the morning. It will be a grand army afloat; and our landing place, MEMPHIS.

Look out for more news from the West. – While the stereotyped phrase, ‘all quiet,’ ‘safe in our trenches,’ is echoed from the ‘Grand Army of the Potomac,’ the watchword in the West is ‘forward,’ and with each ‘forward’ a ‘victory.’

All is haste, and I close to write you from Memphis. In haste,

DIFF.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 16, 1862, p. 1