June 6, 1864.
I will try and send you this to-day. Our postmaster never
calls for letters, though we could send them if he would. I will try hereafter
to send oftener, though you must not feel anxious about me. I will take the
best care I can of myself (and do my whole duty). I yet think that to be
connected with such a campaign as this is well worth risking one's life for. It
occasionally gets a little old, but so does everything in this life, and
altogether I don't know but that it wears as well as any of life's pleasures.
Do you remember when I was at home how little I knew about good eatables? Here
it is a great advantage to me. For five weeks we have been living on “hard
tack,” pickled pork and coffee, varied by not half a dozen meals of beef, not
even beans or rice. Nearly every one grumbles, but I have as yet felt no loss
of appetite, and hardly the desire for a change.
Nearly all the prisoners we capture say they are done
fighting and shamefully say, many of them, that if exchanged and put back in
the ranks they will shirk rather than fight. It would mortify me very much if I
thought any of our men that they captured would talk so. It seems to me that
the Confederacy is only held together by its officers exercising at least the
power of a Czar, and that should we leave it to itself it would crumble. Well,
I am calculating that this campaign will end about the 15th of July, in
Atlanta. I cannot hope for a leave of absence again until my time is out,
unless I resign, and if active campaigning continues, as some think it will,
until the war is over, of course I will have no chance to do the latter. Cousin
James is near me here, and I expect to see him soon.
Passed Charlie Maple on the road yesterday; also saw Clegget
Birney. He is a splendid looking boy. They say the 7th Cavalry will soon
be here; also the 8th Illinois. I will try to write you every week hereafter.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 255-6
