"I have only a moment to write you that we are just about marching to
the South. I am very busy, both the colonels and quartermaster being
sick. I am colonel, quartermaster, and almost everything else. My
health is very good. I see you are secretary of the Ladies Soldiers'
Aid Society. You can't do too much for the soldiers, but their greatest
need is in the hospitals, good nurses, good cooks, clean shirts,
sheets, and kind treatment. If I am to die in the army, I want it to be
on the battlefield, never in the miserable hospitals."
The following presents not an unusual phase of soldiering, but new to
me:--
"About this hour (3 A.M.) more than two months ago [the day the
regiment left Evansville] my good wife was up to give me a good
breakfast and bid me good-bye, and I ought to be able to write her a
short letter at the same hour.
"We left Otterville day before yesterday with all our regiment that
could march, with a train of fifty wagons. We had unbroken, balky
horses, and have had a hard time with the train. Our division is fifty
miles below Warsaw, and about out of provisions, and we have to use
great haste to get them forward. To expedite matters I have taken
personal command of the provision train and have been working hard at
it. Sometimes it takes us two hours to get over one hill, then two
hours to get through one mud-hole. I am not much of a wagoner, as you
know, but I have the authority and the knack of getting a good deal
of work out of the men. I have two good wagon-masters along with me.
I take their advice, and then assume to know all about it with the
drivers. You ought to see me preside over the difficulties of a hill or
a mud-hole. When a wagon gets stalled, I just get off my horse and put
my shoulder to it. The men work twice as hard when I help them. We got
along pretty well to-day and reached our camp long before dark. This
morning we have two heavy hills before us, and are up at three o'clock
to have the horses fed and ready for a move as soon as it is light.
Breakfast is announced and we must be ready to be off soon. If I get
through with the provisions in good time it will be equal to a _small
victory_ for our division of the army. I am well and hearty; this kind
of work makes me fat."