From the Nashville Patriot, April 1.
The following
letter was received at this office yesterday, with a request to publish:
CAMP DOUGLAS,
CHICAGO, ILL., Thursday, March 6.
MR. EDITOR: In
behalf of the prisoners captured at Fort Donelson, composing the two companies
from Dixon County, I ask permission, through your columns, to say to their
friends that they are generally well and properly cared for. Only one (A.L.
CUNNINGHAM) has died since we have been here. W.E. WINFREY and M.L. BAKER, of
Capt. GRIGSBY's Company, were killed in the fight at the fort. Capt. CORDING
lost none. We want to say to our wives, fathers, mothers, and children, not to
run away from homes and firesides, as others have done, even if the Federal
forces should come in their midst; nor grieve themselves unnecessarily on our
account. We know not (if we are detained long) how our wives and children will
live; but we are prisoners of hope, and have formed a better opinion of the
Northern people and the army than we were accustomed to hear. We are short of
clothing, and particularly of money.
JACOB LEECH.
– Published in The
New York Times, New York, New York, Friday, April 11, 1862
