General Hospital        

Brashear City L.A. April 7^th 1863

 

            Dear Wife.      To night as I am watching with the sick I will try and write you a short letter so that you may know that I have not forgotten you and also tell you a little of what is going on down here in Secesh land I have not received any letters from you since friday the 27^th of March nearly two weeks perhaps the reason is because there has not been any regular mail arrived at New Orleans in that time. I have sent you two letters in that time although they were not very lengthy the last one I enclosed in one that I sent to T. F. Horton and only mailed it Sunday two days after it was written I am still well and I think that I have not enjoyed as good health in two years as I do now and yet I work hard every day and sit up the half of every other night but yet I am improving not only in health but in flesh and appetite for I can eat nearly every hour in the day and yet we have a plenty to eat such as bread butter potatoes, meat, rice, buiscuit, tea, coffee sugar milk and ocasionally Johny cake & beans and all that I have to do to get it is just to help myself for I have to oversee the cooking and I order what ever cooked that I have a mind to

 

            Well you will see by the heading of this that we have mooved again when I wrote my two last letters we were stationed at a place called Bayou Boeuff about 7 miles from here but since then there has reinforcements come on and we have mooved back to Brashear or rather the regiment has but the hospital is located on an island about one mile from the city there is about a thousand acres in the island and it is the most beautiful place that I have seen in the South and in fact since I left New York City the house is as large as the Baptist church and is three stories high finished off in the nicest style the mantle shelves is Italian marble and the windows have guilt moulding and a cornice over them on the inside the walls are made hard finish and painted the floor of the lower story is made of cement and is as hard as stone the furniture of the house has been of the most costly kind Wesly & I are using a book case and bureau to keep our medicines and other things in that is solid mahogany / and must have cost when new not less than 40. or 50. dollars and the other furniture that is here is as nice But when I speak of nice things all of the rest I shall have to overlook when I see the yard around the house I cannot describe it as it is it is laid out in all shapes and walks made all through and paved with small clam shells that are about as large as a silver half dollar and all through the yard is nothing but flowers and them that are the most splendid that I ever saw Mr Williams at Newark cannot compare with it. If I had the flowers that is on a half acre here on our lot I would not sell it for $1500 dollars there is flowers of all kinds and colors. Roses, honey suckels & Sweet Williams are all of the kinds that I know the name of but there is probably 25 other kinds of flowers in the yard I shall send you some in every letter and paper that I send you as long as I stay here. then there is the garden it is larger than Frenches lot and it is worth looking at beans that have run up the poles two feet cabbage with leaves as large as your hand potatoes the tops are knee high squash vines two feet long corn 8 & 10 inches high and the other things are as forward as those there is an arbour about six or seven rods long that is covered with grape vines they are leaved out as nice as can be if we are here when grapes are ripe (if there is any) I think I will have some to eat But you cannot guess what I had to eat last night Something that cannot be got in wayne County at this time of year well I eat about a pint of ripe black berries just picked from the bushes you better believe that they were good they are plenty, the bushes have ripe berries and blows on all at once and hang very full

 

There is on this lot orrange trees lemon trees fig trees and the banana tree and pomgranate tree the banana tree has leaves on from 6 to 8 feet long and about 10 inches wide the leaves grow from the body of the tree very much like corn leaves there is a good many trees here that I do not know what they are

 

            The owner of this house and plantation was a union man and his wife was a Rebel he went to helping the union army and his wife sent word to the Rebels about it and then he had to leave or they would have killed him so he came and joined our army 

 

But I have not told you yet about anything that we are doing down here. the army here now instead of there being only about four thousand in all there is now stationed here and at the place that we just left some twenty thousand men and a hundred cannon. Ever since the loss of the gun boat Dianna there has been an expidition a fitting out here to go up the river and men and guns have been arriving ever since until the force has been increased to 4 Brigades besides the Artilery and Cavalry that are here Last night the orders were given to our Regiment to prepare three days cooked rations and be ready to march at an hours notice so they are expecting to get marching orders hourly and will not probably stay here more than a day or two at the longest. when they leave here they will not probably come back again very soon unless that the Rebels whip them and drive them back but I guess they cannot do that for each man seems determined to do or die we have a few in our company that are afraid to go and are playing sick so as to get off but do not succeed very well the doctor thinks that they are not very sick as long as they can eat as hearty as they do The expidition when it starts will probably go up to Red River and be stationed there to cut of the supplies that the rebels gets from Texas I would like to go with them but the doctor says that Wesly Drake myself and Failing have got to stay here to the general hospital and take care of our sick and the wounded if they should have a fight and any get wounded. there will probably be a fight when they get about 20 miles above here as the rebels have quite an army up there at a place called Franklin they have a salt work there and salt is something that they need very much but that will not save them a great while if they do not skedadle pretty fast

 

            I am getting so sleepy that I can not hardly see to write or see what I write so I shall have to either stop writing and wind up my letter or postpone it until another time or I shall go to sleep in my chair for I have been up so much lately that I get sleepy very easily but after we get settled I shall have it a little easier and not have to sit up so much 

 

            March 10^th      I thought I would not send this until I had filled up this page so I put it off until this morning and now I will try and finish it Yesterday Thursday the expidition commenced mooving Our Brigade was the leading Brigade and the 160^th Regiment the second regiment yesterday morning the troops commenced going by here and it took until almost night before they all got by the road was lined with men from morning until night a constant string all of the time of men and cannon a going by and then there was cars enough came in to make a train a mile long loaded down out side and in with soldiers all going up the bay toward Franklin where there will probably be a severe fight there must be not less than thirty thousand soldiers here and that have crossed the bay ready to march in the night when it is cool General Banks himself is with them to command the expidition in person

 

            I never knew until now what it was to see an army until there was a train of ambulance wagons for to carry the wounded in that was a quarter of a mile long Each wagon can carry four men at a time there will no doubt be work enough for them to do as well as for the doctors the wounded will probably be sent here as this is the nearest hospital then there will be work enough for us to do and that of most disagreeable kind for there is such a bad smell that comes from the wounds that it is very sickning to dress them we have four men here now that was wounded when the Dianna was taken by the rebels one of them has his leg shot so that it had to taken off just below the knee another was shot through the cheek so it came out of his mouth knock out his teeth another was struck by a cannon ball and had all of the flesh taken off his hip larger than your two hands clear to the bone then there is several others with slight wounds & some only just bruised a little but they are all sore enough

 

            But I must bring this to a close and postpone writing any more until I hear from the boys after the fight if there is any you can tell if you get all my letters because I number them on the corner of the envelope it is number six since march the first

 

Yours as Ever    L. V. Tucker

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