Fayetteville Tenn Aug 3 1863

 

Dear Wife:—

                        Your letter of July 22^d & mailed the 25^th reached me at Salem Winchester on the 30^th. Mail can come quick and it is very strange that it is sometimes so long. I was very glad to hear from you once more and I wish I could get the letters which you have been writing for the last two months.

 

            July 26^th all the cavalry left this place and marched to Salem & on the 29^th went to Winchester On the 31^st were paid two months pay and the next day started back & arrived here last night When we left here no one knew what it was for nor where we were going. It seems very singular that an army of eight or ten thousand cavalry should move 35 miles bag and baggage—take every thing just to get their pay & then just move right back again, when the paymaster with an escort of a few hundred men could have come to us with but little trouble. Yet this is all we got, except starvation for our horses on the way going and coming, and it is to be presumed that is all we went for. But I suppose these mysterious movements are all strategy, so we must think they are all right.

 

            My two months pay amounted to $64.^40/100 / I received Orderly's pay. I was appointed in May. As I was acting in that capacity I was not notified of the appointment and did not receive my warrent till a short time ago. The first opportunity I have of sending money with any degree of safety I shall avail myself of. The cars are running now to this place but no express office is here, and besides the road runs a long way through the enemy's country and trains are frequently captured or robbed.

 

            Bill Bowers has not got here yet. I had a letter from him dated July 21^st he was then at Memphis hoping to be sent here soon. His health was good. Lt LaGrange is sick with billious fever and has been for several days, so that I have plenty of business on my hands, and this must be my excuse for not writing more letters and longer and better ones.

 

            The weather is intolerably hot yet the health of the army is generally good. I am well and so are the boys of your acquaintance except Eugene Alling. He is not very well, is threatened with fever I think, though he is able to mope around.

 

            What the intended movements of this army are it is impossible for me to guess. Why we don't push on to Chattanooga & Atlanta & still further down I cannot see, but perhaps it would not be good policy for they might raise an army in our rear. in fact it has been reported and / quite extensively believed that Bragg was ordered in Kentucky with an army of 70,000, and many thought we were going back there when we left this place a little over a week ago. A short time ago a train of several hundred packmules with pack saddles and every thing ready for use were brought down here. This looked as though an expedition east over the mountains was intended where they would be much more convenient than wagon trains. The mules have been distributed around to the different companies, but no move has yet been made, and now our baggage wagons have come up, so that we have no use for the packmules if we are to be where we can use our wagons.

 

            Today is the anniversary of the most bloody and disastrous conflict in proportion to the number engaged of any in which I have ever had a part. It was the fight at L'Anquille one year ago—but I will forbear to say more, you have undoubtedly heard enough about yet I cannot help but think of it.

 

            It seems after all that the whole Southern army is not yet quite all whipped out. True Lee was beaten at Gettysburg, but he occupies his old position beyond the Rappahannock and for any thing that I can see is as well able to hold it as ever. Charleston is not yet ours. Our troops have made three desperate and bloody / assaults on Fort Wagner and each time been repulsed with serious loss. Still taking it all around we are gaining ground and we are bound to conquer in the end unless we have some foreign intervention, or our government makes some great blunder; but the end is not yet by a long way.

 

            Dear Frankie: do not think that, because I have written to less frequently of late that I think of you or Willie or home any the less. You can't tell how I long to be at home at work on my farm as I used to be. Were I there I should probably now be harvesting—at work very hard—doing ten times the physical labor that I now do, but I should have comforts—regular meals and regular sleep—which I do not now have. But this is not what I think of. I should be in the society of those I love—be more contented—get rid of this almost constant heartache or longing or whatever it may be called.

 

            I am very busy to-day, have had to make about half a dozen different reports to different officers of every thing concerning the company for the last year, so I will close for the present hoping soon again to hear from you.

                                                                                                            Perry

SOURCES