Camp Near Balls Store,

Penninsula of Va

18 Miles from

Richmond,

13 May 1862.

 

My Dear Wife,

                        I do sincerely hope soon to get a number of letters from you all. As I before wrote, your only two letters recd. lately are of the date of 17 March & 15 Apl the latter enclosed to Mr Watt & forwarded by him. Mr Watt wrote that he had recd a letter from Mary dated 21 Apl atached the [?] from you all—now 22 days. This is a long time; but short compared with other times that had elapsed between the reception of letters from you. However anxious I am to get letters from you, I am much more anxious to see you at Richmond; and I will not take a denial. You must come. Leave the family at Washington, Atlanta, Nassau or Columbus as before written to you & come without delay. I am now permanently assigned to a Brigade & will remain near Richmond for an indefinite time Then if you can think of any article of clothing that I may need you can get & fetch it with you I have plenty of that you left behind at Columbus and John E Davis can get it. write to him to do so & bring it to me. I have appointed him my Brig. Qr. Mr. & he will leave in two or three weeks, & that will be a first rate opportunity for you to embrace to come along. I wrote to him yesterday to write to you & say he would take charge of you. Write to him immediately. I wrote to him to sell the horses. He says one is blind & the other has defective eyes. He will sell them unless you write to him to the contrary. He examined the carriage at Lockhart & Youngs & found it in fine order. I asked him to lock up the piano, & put it in charge of Carter or some other Music man. I have plenty of summer drawers & socks, I believe—need some flannel shirts such as I got before,    made double as long as those I had made before I left home. The latter can scarcely be kept within my pantaloons. My shoes, if you have them, can be brought along. I have a pair of shoes, never worn here, that I brought from Columbus, & a new pair of boots you [paper hole] for me, never yet worn. Beside another good common pair of shoes brought from home & I have worn all winter the very thick boots you will recollect I had made this winter before I left home.

 

My net pay from the Bank is now only $750 pr year & I dont know how long this will last & dont care much. This net salary runs from Jany to Jany. My pay as Colonel was 195 Dollars per month. My pay from 11^th March as Brig Gen is $300 per month or 3612 dollars per annum My income then, not relying on any thing else, is say, $4300. The whole of this is liable to be cut off at any moment by my death & can be no uncertainty about this, if I should live. So, you need not put off coming any longer. You can be pleasantly situated at Richmond, in a private boarding house, even the country nearby. I fully believe that this army will remain in the vicinity of Richmond, at least for some time. I do not think that McClellan will or can whip us, but that we will whip him. I have written to you of the dangers through which I have passed unhurt, for which I feel humbly & gratefully thankful to Our Heavenly Father. After getting to Va. & looking around, if the family can be as economically boarded here as in Ga. I shall by all means insist on their coming too. You must know that I feel deeply anxious to see you & not only you but the dear Girls & dear Little Buds!

 

If you should have any of my clothing with you such as you may suppose I will need, bring it with you. [?]  I mention these facts for your information. I have or had a few days ago $2600 on deposit in Columbus, which should be treasured up. I sent $1200 of that from Richmond a few days ago—or pay up to that time—up to 1^st May inst. So you see that we have in Bank $2600, which must be sparingly touched, & my pay which is say $4300 per annum or, say $11⁰⁰ per day, but as I before remarked, with my death all this pay stops. I hope you have taken good care of the cotton crop made last year, & that plenty of meat will certainly be made on the plantation. Mary writes that no cotton will be planted. I had heard that the Legislature of Ark would not allow more than 2 bales per [?]. I rather regret that a small crop was not planted. 40 or 50 bales might have helped. But on the other hand, it might have fallen into the hands of the Yankees if not destroyed. As no cotton has been planted, tell Mr Dye raise all the pigs he possibly can, so as to make meat for sale. Meat will be scarce & high & ready sale & perhaps better than the corn & more secure more certain than the corn would be that the hogs would consume. So, let him raise & fatten every 10 months old hog or pig that he can possibly. Corn meat will bring a good price; especially meat. What to do for negro shoes & such like I dont know; You must look [?] in good time. I know you will do the best you can. I fear that Mr Dye will make a small crop. You know, by not planting cotton, he can cultivate much more ground in corn than he could in corn & cotton together, as corn is so much easier cultivated.

 

I said I had appointed John E Davis my Qr. Mr. & that he would soon be in—that is, not under two, three or four weeks. At Marys solicitation, I have today written to Dick Bell (& Mr Harris) offering Dick Bell the post of Commissary both of them have the rank & pay of Captain of Cavalry. I also sent Davis a telegram today by mail to be sent by telegraph to Jackson to Miss. to Bell & Mr Harris, offering Dick this position, & requested Davis to carry on the necessary correspondence with Dick. I dont know what kind of a Commissary Dick will make, but suppose he ought to do very well. I wrote & telegraphed him to come at once to Richmond, or to come on with Davis from Columbus. I offered Ellis one of these posts & Mr Shepherd the other (this is Confidential) but Ellis thought (& so did I) that he would be elected Lt. Col. of the 2 Ga. or Col. & therefore we both thought on reflection that he had better not accept. After his defeat for Lt. Col. I again offered it, but he declined, supposing that he would be able to do better that is, to get an offer that would put him nearer in the field with troops. He was afterwards willing to take it, but so I was told, but I had abandoned the idea of offering it to him any way Davis is appointed & has accepted. Shepherd accepted the post of Commissary then preferred that of Volunteer Aid without pay, then was prevailed on by his Co. to stay with it, was re-elected Captain of his Co, ran for Major of the 2^d Ga, was defeated then put word to me that he would accept the post (or another offered by me) but I sent word to him they were not open. The 2^d Ga went to the dogs just as soon as I quit it. They re-elected some of the very worst officers in it, turned out a number of the very best. I elected a number of the worst men to commission officer! The Regt is thoroughly demoralized, & I am sorry now the name will be perpetuated. John Read (old Billys son) & young Cody are two of my volunteer aids. They have only nominal rank without pay. E B Biggs is my regular aid. He was my sergeant Major in the 2^d Ga. & so valuable to me that I made him aid. Clemons is, of course, my assistant adjutant General. Dan Tucker & Bill, I suppose, A.C. Subsistence (Commissary). I had John Kidd & Doc Cody transferred from 2 Ga to 10 Ga in my Brig. & had them detached on extra duty. They receive the pay of extra duty men only & no pay as officers. They are here with me. So are Clemons & Biggs. Mary writes about Williford. I made no contract with him whatever & will not. If you made any let me know without delay, so that I can satisfy or abrogate it. My purpose was only to have a man near at hand in Ark. to supply the place of an overseer if mine died or quit the plantation & to provide only for such pressing exigencies, without waiting to hear from me. If he developed a disposition to commence the Ark. grab-game, I will have nothing to do with him. The M[?] think well of Dye—so they wrote me & I sent this letter to you. You seem to think well of him. I hope he will do well. The Yankees will soon be up White River, but the negroes should be kept close. Our place is about as compatibly laid out as one can be. I would today sacrifice anything life included, before I would cease to fight them. We can & we will whip them, if we all fight on. They never can subdue us, nor hold our Country. It is impossible. If only true to ourselves, we will come out victorious. The Lord has impressed me with the belief that we will surely whip McClellan here. I do feel thankful for being impressed with such a feeling.

 

If you could see this army as I have seen it under the most trying circumstances you would say that it could not be whipped. The retrograde movement from the line of Yorktown, Wynnes Mill, Dam No 1, Dam No 2 & Lees Mill is thus far most masterly & the greatest achievement of the war! I believe I told you that I had been much exposed to the enemys missiles at Dam No 1 that I communicated with the enemy twice by Flag of Truce that I commanded last Sunday a week at Ft Magruder & the adjacent redoubts that my Battery silenced that of the enemy, & that I sent Clemons out with the teams of the Richmond Howitzers & brought in the captured gun, 3 caissons & parts of 2 more, well filled with ammunition, that our loss very slight & that I escaped unhurt, although much exposed to the missiles of the enemy! Why the Yankees dont attack us here, I dont know. I have no idea. McClellan is equal to Johnston or G W Smith. He is a slow coach. He calculated on the Yorktown line to place a Battery 300 or 400 guns & scare [?] us away by the loud noise! By the time he got ready to open his Batteries, Gen Johnston picked up & left!! He must have been completely disconcerted! It is reported & believe it that the Merimac has been blown up by order. They surprised us all. Tis said the James River has been blocked so that gun boats cant pass but if no better success attends the blocking of this river than has thus far that of others it is surely a poor dependence indeed. The Yankees may reach Richmond with their gun boats— 

 

 If so, the city will probably fall. But this is not the inevitable result if proper means of defence are be adopted. Why our government & officers do not establish land batteries able to cope with those on the water, I am unable to see. Most certainly heretofore land batteries have always had the advantage of ships or other armed vessels. There is no reason whatsoever, why Richmond cannot be defended from attack by the River. But our government & people most of them appear to admit that no successful resistance can be offered to Iron Clad gun boats. They were completely whipped at Fort Donaldson & it was the land force that defeated us, not the boats, and what was done at Fort Donaldson can be done on the James River. One of the best cannon foundrys on the continent is to be found at Richmond & there is no reason why we may not have more & as good guns in position on the James as they can possibly bring by water.

The Yankees never can reach Richmond except by water unless they give us the slip. They cant reach it by defeating the armies assembled for its defence. They can only do so by water or by eluding Gen Johnston & this it will be difficult to do.

 

            By proper measures, the Cumberland & Tennessee can now be blocked up & the Yankees dispersed & captured, driven out of Tennessee & perhaps Ky. If Beauregard only whips them now, which we feel assured he will, they can be driven out of Tennessee & he can reoccupy that State & perhaps Ky.

 

            Why on earth N.O. was surrendered rather why it was so easily captured is a mystery. But I have nothing to write more on such subjects.

 

            I have been for some days moving about & have had a greater variety of food & feel better, although, for ten days, until within the last three days, we were moving most of the time day & night. It seems that men will become inured to almost anything. You would scarcely believe it when I tell you that I have often slept at the root of a tree with no covering except my over coat. that, some days ago, I sent my over coat to the rear & got a Cavymans blanket from [?] & cut a hole in it & put it over my head by day & slept on it  (my only covering) at night! That, beside the clothes worn, this blanket was the only thing I had for home, sometimes days & nights of hail, rainy weather—that although the old blanket would become thoroughly saturated outside, & damp inside, still it would keep me warm!

 

Many young men who have been tenderly raised have spent 24 hours in the trenches often in water half leg deep & have slept night after night in wet clothes, covered with wet blankets! By covering up the head, leaving a small air hole, after the clothes become warm, they will, if the [?] dry on the body during the night. It is true that many are made sickly this exposure, but it is a great wonder how so many stand it so well. Recruits [?] are 9 out of 10 made sick directly. One soldier inured to such exposures & hardships for a year is worth on an average 3 recruits a [?]!

 

            My Dear Wife, more than one year has past since I entered the service and I have to thank God, which I heartily & gratefully do, for preserving me from the vices & immoralities of the camp & [?]ing me throughout the whole period to keep my face heavenward.

 

[margins]

 

I have cause to be thankful for preserved health, faculties & [?] accidental disease & dangers; & humbly trust that I will yet be spared a [?] save my poor Country & [?] to my dear family I never [?] at sight of my highest obligations to God & my sacred most sacred obligations to my dear family. In the midst of disease, death & calamity, we / have much to be thankful for. Nothing in the realities of war has tended to draw me off from God but much to make me more fixed & steadfast in my determination let others do as they will, to continue to put my [?] in Hell!

 

Much love Dear wife—much love to the dear Girls & Buds             Yr affec Hd P.J.S.

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