Columbia  Tennessee  August the 10^th 1862

 

Dear Mother

                        I seat my self this morning to answer your kind and welcome letter whitch i received [faded, paper fold] hapy to hear ove you all enjoying good health i am well at presant and getting a long as well as i could expect the way we are situated things are beginning to loock prety dark [faded] down here evry thing [faded] to work against our army they is six of our companeys here we have to gard the town and gard the railroad cars through to Huntsville that takes one company evry day they take so many out of all the companeys for that i was detailed yesterday to go down and [faded, paper fold] but did not kill anny person the train was stoped and fiered on them when they was runing a way they was on horse back wheather we killed any or not is more than i can tell the rebles wounded one of our men that was garding a bridge that was near by he belonged to a Ohio regiment they threatened to tear up the track a gain the train would come back so we started on our way we could see lots of them in the woods all a long we got down safe and when we came back to pulaski they engine couldent [faded, paper fold] and they run down the train backwards and the train run off ove the track the carr that was on our [stain] and they was a steep bluff on one side and a deep [stain] on other whitch was some 30 feet [stain] soon as the men found the carr was off they began to gump off i held on to the carr until i found it was going in the crick and then i gumped off without being hurt when i gumped off i saw ten or fifteen men lying under the carrs one of our company was run over and both / leggs smashed and one of Company I men had his leg cut off they was several men that was cratched but not bad we caryed them to the depot and had a doctor brung and they was taking to the hospital in pulaski the man that [faded] company died last night at eight oclock i was very sory to hear ove it he was a nice man his name was Hiram Messick from pittsburgh a privet in the company Frank Mitchell was a long he escaped without being hurt General Negley is stil in Columbia useing the secesh as kind as ever it makes no diference how many prisoners we bring in to him he will sware them and leave them go and they dont regard an oath as mutch as a hourse on our trip yesterday we fiered on evry man we saw a way from his house they sitizens a round here will stand up and preach [faded] doctrine to our teeth and our officers wont leave us tutch them i saw one of our officers draw a pistol on one ove our regiment the other day for going to take a watermelon out ove a patch when he hadent had any thing to eat that day if this is the way to cary on this war it will last for ten years the soldiers are getting very mutch disheartened and dont seem to care how it goes we wont never conquer the south til we take to burning evry thing as we go a long [faded, paper fold] [stain] seen turned loose and has got all a mongst [stain] a great many prisoners of hours and destroying a good deal of railroads well Mother my honest opinion is that we are a bout in our last ditch [faded] reinforcements comes quick this i dont want you to show to any person tell walt to stay at home i got a letter from dan a fiew minets a go he says they will soon leave for war this is all write soon and a long letter Will Sproull is well and all the rest of the boys from a round their

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