Springfield Sept. 26th.
I am in excellent health; am heavier than I
ever was before; weigh a hundred and sixty eight lbs. of nice clear meat: have
outgrown all my clothes, you see that hard crackers agree with me fine. I think Springfield is a healthy place, it
being situated on the highest peak of the Ozark Mountains. The
[The bottom of the newspaper is torn off and
the rest of this letter is missing.]
– Published in The Union Sentinel,
Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 18, 1862, p. 2
Springfield, Sept. 7th. I never had better health in my life, though
we had a hard time[.] While marching from Sedalia to this place—a distance of
One Hundred and twenty five miles, which we marched in six days over the most
hilly and dusty roads I ever say. This
is doubtless to the poorest country in the west. The drought has nearly ruined the crops, and
it looks little like subsisting a large army here through the winter.
Our troops nearly famished for water on their
march, and the roads were so dusty that none could scarcely tell the color of
our cloths or even the color of the men.
After crossing the Osage River, we commenced climbing the Ozark Mountains,
and had nothing but hills, hollows and rocks from their to Springfield.
Take it, all in all, it is one of the most
God-forsaken countries I ever saw. War
has destroyed every thing in its way, houses [tenantless], fences burned, and
orchards destroyed. You can scarcely see
a man in a day’s travel, unless it is some old man unable to do any thing.
– Published in The Union Sentinel,
Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 18, 1862, p. 2
