*** Marion Brimberry has entrusted me with a folder of Civil War letters by William A. Smith and has asked me to type one letter every day or so and post it to this newsgroup. I have typed the letter true to the spelling and grammar of the letters in my possession. If I add any errors of my own, please forgive me. David Thomson *** On Board the Choctaw between Hickman and Columbus, Kentucky Mississippi River Friday night, April 18th, 1862 My Dear Wife:- I expected a letter from you today but we have been on the move all day and al letter could hardly find us. My last to you was last Saturday night. Sunday morning we was ordered to saddle up and march to the boat landing to be ready to go down the river. Sunday and Monday there was a great many troops went down the river. We laid on the bank till yesterday morning, when we was ordered on board the boat to go down the river. We went down as far as Riddles Point below Point Pleasant and was ordered back. The whole country clear down to Fort Pillow is covered with water so that there is not much chance for military operations above there. Opposite Hickman, I saw at two different houses, women waving neat little flags. I wish every woman in the United States had one and would make use of it. I don’t feel like writing tonight, you will therefore excuse me. I send you ten dollars for your own use. You can use some of it to buy Rollin a willow wagon if you like to. There is $25. due to Pap on the horse he let Jack Foster have. I told John Foster to give him twenty five or thirty dollars. I hope that you have received the box of overcoats that we sent. You will send Mrs. Clow word and let her have both Allen and John Clow’s. They will pay me the expenses. One that is marked R.F.Y. in the sleeve belongs to Corporal Young. You will keep it till they send for it or I will tell you where to send it some other time. We left him and Corporal Hamilton lying side by side in the hospital at New Madrid, as well as Eldridge Jones and two others of our Company. Saturday morning We landed at Cairo a little after daylight. Birds Point is entirely under water. Just after the gun at the fort fired to hail us, a snag struck one of the barges that was towed by the Woodford, which was loaded with horses, and it would have soon sank but they run it aground at the fort. I was standing on the upper deck and saw it. It was an ugly sight to see a log run right up through the front end and a barge even. It would seem worse for a steamboat. I don’t know how long we will stop here but I suppose only long enough to take on coal. You will direct your letters here, as we will go up the river. The weather is rather wet and disagreeable. I send you the Southern account of our first visit to New Madrid, of which I have already wrote to you. I wrote to you two weeks ago tomorrow and enclosed some of your letters, but have got no answer. Did you get it. I received a letter from Dr. Beach a few days ago and he told me that one of our children had the mumps. He did not say which it was. I am anxious to hear from you. I hope it is well by this time. I have not had it yet. I suppose there was not enough to go around or I would have had it. I hope you may escape as well as I have. The mumps have been quite hard on Eldridge Jones. You have never told me whether you received those crackers that I sent by Dave and how you would like to live on them. Some of the boys are now eating breakfast to the tune of fifty cents a meal, others are taking their mornings dram at ten cents a drink, and a great many are cursing the guards because they will not let them go ashore. Some are still in the land of dreams. I think the water is twenty feet higher in the river than the streets of Cairo, but it is nearly all covered with water. It looks like two feet more of water would go clear over the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad, then the whole place would be destroyed. We are lying about a mile above the St. Charles hotel, but when we get coal we will drop down to town. I will then go to the express office and send this to my wife. William A. Smith

*** Marion Brimberry has entrusted me with a folder of Civil War letters by William A. Smith and has asked me to type one letter every day or so and post it to this newsgroup. I have typed the letter true to the spelling and grammar of the letters in my possession. If I add any errors of my own, please forgive me. David Thomson *** Hamburg, Tennessee Sunday morning, April 27th, 1862 My Dear Wife:- I am again permitted to address you. I hope you are all enjoying good health. My health is rather bad for a few days, but nothing serious as I am able to do my duty and yesterday to ride out to the battle ground. I am very anxious to hear from you. I have had no letter from you for two weeks last night, which I answered the same night. I sent you some money from Cairo, then I sent you a paper from Metropolis, Illinois and a letter to Nancy from Paduka Kentucky and I sent mother a letter two or three days ago. I ought ere this to have received an answer from you to a large letter that I sent you on the 6th inst. I hope you have before now received the money I sent you. I have now sent home all the money for the horses but ten dollars to esquire S.S. Jones that comes from William Knight. I am very anxious to know how you are getting long with our things, and about wood etc. I want to know how you are doing with the orchard. I hope you will take particular care of that, and have it well tended. I wrote to you once before to hire George by the day to put in such things as you wanted in it and I would send you the money to pay him. I hope you will do it and if you need more money than I have sent you, I will send you some in a letter. I hope when you write again you will tell me about such things. I know that George is willing to do anything for you that you will ask him, but I hope that you will, if you have the money, pay him for all the chores he does for you and if he has any time to spare from his other work, I wish you would get pap to hire him to get up a lot of wood for you, enough to at least do you through the summer and you can let me know how much it costs and I will send you the money. I want to know how the children are getting along at school and whether they are supplied with books, and if you have sent the subscription to Diora ’s paper. I hope you will still take that or some other one for her. I received the paper sent by Miss Colburn, thank her for me. If I can get hold of a late secesh paper, I will return the compliment. I suppose you would both be glad to read a rebel paper. I am writing about one thing and you want to hear of another, well here it is. After I wrote to you from Cairo we started up the Ohio river and passed Mound City late in the evening, and during the night we landed at Metropolis, Illinois. In the morning (last Sunday) I went ashore and went to the post office and then went to a store to buy some cheese, but the keeper had no cheese. I called for breakfast and his wife gave me a good breakfast and the weekly Commercial of the 17th, but would not have any pay for it. I made her little girl a present and went to the boat, thinking of the comforts of home and the pleasure of female society. A barge belonging to our boat, loaded with 90 horses was smashed and began to fill with water. The horses were then all crowded on our boat, and again we steamed up the river. At Paduka we stopped for coal. It is a very nice place but I was a little disappointed with it. It does not look as well from the river as I expected. Leaving there we turned up the Tennessee river. By reference to the map you will see that we are then going towards Dixie. About eleven o’ clock we passed Fort Henry. It being night, we could not see much of it. In the morning we passed a railroad bridge that was all destroyed but the piers. During the day the scenery was the nicest that I ever saw. The land is rocky and covered with cedars. The river is very narrow. Sometimes the river would be square across it and it would appear that the boat could go no farther. Then the river would curve gracefully around it an away we go again, to have the same thing repeated again with a slight change. Where there is no bluffs the timber is good oak and hickory. The weather was rainy or cloudy both Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday morning we tied up on the opposite (east) side from Pittsburg landing and about noon proceeded up the river about two miles to Hamburg, and landed on the west side of the river where we pitched our tents and stayed two nights and was ordered to move about half mile. Before we got fixed up, we was again ordered to rove but the order was soon countermanded and only one battalion of our Regiment moved out. The next day we was again ordered to march without our tents, with two days cooked rations in our haversacks, but that order was soon reversed and we are now expecting to march at short notice, but may possibly be here several days. The Rev R.H. Massy heard that our Regiment was here and came over to see me. He is not as fleshy as he was when I last saw him. I went over to the battle ground yesterday. You have read so many accounts of it that it is useless for me to try to give a description of the place. If I should write till I am grey headed, I could not convey a true picture of the place. I say hundreds of acres that it would seem from the shots in the trees and bushes, that a man could not possibly be on during the battle, without being killed. The battle ground is about such a place as it is from the Bill Blurton place to Uncle Brits, black oak ridges and post oak flats with an occasional old field. The bushes of the size of your wrist and smaller are all cut down by the bullets. The large saplings and trees are literally felled by the bullets. In trees not larger than a persons body, can be counted twenty to thirty balls. The cannonading was not as heavy as we had a New Madrid, except near the river, where the heavy metal from our gun boats took effect. There was however a perfect storm of six pound shot and shell all over the field of battle. Some trees are notched in three or four places by small cannon balls. There is a terrible stench that permeates the whole battle field, caused by the dead horses which was not buried deep enough. I visited the 40th Illinois and saw Sam Reed. He is sick. He tells me that your father and Tom writes to him. I saw a great many and some that I did not know had joined the army, amongst by acquaintances, I saw Bruce Hatten. I took dinner with him, John Hickerson, Rilan Walsh, little Dow Ald.(?) Parris Manning, Robt. Nance, young Mike Gee, and one of Susan Gibbs brothers, both of the Wolfes, Calvin Garner and both the Arnold boys. I went to the Eleventh and saw Jacob Pool. He had a ball pass through the leg of his pants but was not hurt. He is in good health. Burket was out on picket guard and Will Ballard was gone fishing. I saw neither of them. I saw W. Elbert Purcell and Uncle Jacks pete at the 48th. I did not go into the 41st, as I suppose John Boring has not returned from home. I heard from Jeff Boring who came up with us, that John had been to see you. I am glad that he went. I will tomorrow send a letter to his Regiment and when he comes back, I will go and see him. He can tell me of a great many things I have not heard. You are aware that we expect a battle soon in this neighborhood. When it does come off you will not think it strange if some of us are killed, but I do hope you will content yourself with as little uneasiness as possible till you hear the result, which I do hope will be in our favor. Lieut. Shoup has got his discharge and Asa W. McDonald is now our second Lieut. Charlie Lee went home from Cairo and Sergeant Breeze also went, by whom I sent my money. I think Robert Young has gone home. If he has gone home, I think he will pay you a visit before he returns to his Company. You will keep his overcoat till you hear from him or me about it. I think John M. Hamilton has gone to Evansville Indiana, also Eldridge Jones. I was in hopes they would be sent home on sick furlough. It is possible that they may yet go home, but I rather have some fears in Johns case. He was a little worse when I saw him last and his complaint is a deceiving one, the pneumonia. I believe that Walter Scott was three year old yesterday. I send you a dollar to buy him a present and tell him that Pa sent it to him. You will buy the rest of the children some little present if you can find them something suitable. I hope you will give my respects to your mother. I would like to hear from her. Then Elizabeth has not wrote to me for some time. Why don’t she write. Tell me how Billy Marohl is getting along. I have not saw Eli. W. Jones since he got on the boat at New Madrid, but his regiment is encamped about half a mile from here. John Gaut does not stand the rub quite as well as some others. William Arnold is also sick. I suppose you have not seen any young plums and mulberries. We have them here half grown. By reference to the map you will see that we are very near the south line of Tennessee. I believe it is only about 10 miles to the line of Mississippi. It may be that my next letter will be dated from that state. I have not seen a newspaper for several days. It is almost impossible to get a paper here. There is thousands of them comes here but there is not much chance to get one. It is a kind of a grab game. Good bye to Mrs. Mary Smith from William A. Smith.