Lewisburg Ark.

Aug 6^th 1864

 

Friend Gabe,

                        With pleasure did I receive your very welcome and interesting letter of the 14^th and 15^th of July. You perhaps have not heard yet that we are not now in our camp in Little Rock. We left Little Rock on the 26^th of July We received the orders for marching about one Oclock on the night of the 23 and started about daylight on the 26^th. Our march to this place and our proceedings since we have been here are in no way interesting to any one save those who were along and participated in the expedition, which consisted of the 29^th Iowa that about 400 of the 10^th Ill. Cav. and the 1^st Mo. battery, consisting in all of nearly 1000 men. Perhaps you would like to know something in regard to what kind of country we have traveled over and what kind of a place we have got too. Well in the first place the country is mostly broken and rocky / but there is not many farms in cultivation but where there is any family at all there is most generally from four to five families at least the women of that many families are there but the men are no where to be found; They are either in the rebel army or out bushwhacking or on their own hook. In one sense of the word the people down here appear to still love the old motto of our country, which is E Pluribus unum: many in one, for where ever we find one woman we find a whole house full. Well, I hardly know where to begin or what to say in describing the town of Lewisburg. It is a small town on the banks of the Ark. river, 50 miles from L Rock It is almost excluded from the whole world and the rest of civilization by a chain of high rocky hills which extend almost entirely around the place. Almost any one can find the way in but it takes a pretty shrewd fellow to find the way out again. Schools have been "played out" since the war broke out and as to churches I guess they never did have any for there is not a house in the place / to hold divine service in, neither is there any school house here but the folks say they once had schools before the rebellion broke out. You can form some idea of the flourishing condition of the place when I tell you that it has been laid out in a town for thirty five years and there are now not more than thirty houses in it today that are fit even for negro quarters and the most of them look as though they had been built when the town was first laid off.

 

The drouth has been terrible here this summer the corn what little there is looks as though the planters were farming on the shares and they tended their part of the crop and left the ground for the owner of the land to tend his own, for at most there will not be more than one half a crop and that is the small yellow, judging from the size and color of the stalks. The soldiers appear to think that Uncle Sam has a pretty heavy claim on the country for there is not a cornfield, apple orchard, or chicken roost for miles around here but what shows the effects of the work of the Feds 

 

We expect to clean this country out if we stay here long enough to give us a chance to eat all the forage there is around here.

 

We have a very easy time here now to what we would if we were at Little Rock There the troops are on duty every day here we are not on duty more than once a week. The town is being slightly strengthened by earthworks for the defense of the place, but the citizens are pressed into the work and have the work to do instead of the soldiers. O, but it does me good to see them work. I wish there was more of it done, then our soldiers would not have so much of it to do as they now have.

 

In this work there is no respect shown to persons Lawyers, doctors, merchants and clerks all as well as the laboring class all have to go into the ditch and handle the spade and the pick and some of them are getting to be quite handy and when the war is over and they no longer have the negroes to do their work for them they will know how to go to work for themselves But the weather is scorching hot and it goes pretty hard with them They sometimes get mad and curse Abe Lincoln, Jeff Davis, the Southern confederacy the United States, the Yankees and the rebs and after they have cursed everything they can think of then to wind up right they curse one another, but it is all no use they are in for it and they must get out as best they can.

 

The men are pretty hard looking, all dressed in their favorite color, the regular butternut. I fancy that I can see the rebs looking just about like these fellows as they would be on their fortifications, them and the negroes together, working away as if for dear life to strengthen their works to be able to whip the yankee feds when they come but when they do come behold the first thing the rebs can do is to get out on the double quick. sometimes however the order is reversed and the yankees are the ones to go off on the double quick. but I wont say much about that for I dont like the thoughts of doing that kind of business.

 

One remark in your letter attracts my attention and I think I can reply to it that is in regard to the war. You say that you saw prospect of a speedy termination of this war. for my part I am not very well informed concerning the movements of the army but from what little information we get everything is going on as well as can possibly / be expected. the work must of necessity progress slowly but it moves steadily on. Grant with his army has already accomplished wonders and time alone is now needed for the accomplishment of greater works than any yet done. Sherman with his vast and noble army are continually penetrating farther and farther into the very heart of rebeldom and as he goes he is dealing such blows to traitors that it will be impossible for them to hold out any length time unless things take a change in their favor which trusting in God I hope will not be. Well I have written enough for this time. You may get this in a month or two months or four months, or you may never get it. I cant tell. We are in a place now where we will maybe get letters the same way. Hoping though that you are well and that I will hear from you soon I will bid you good by for the present—from George to Gabe.

 

P.S. there is no daguerrean gallery here but I will comply at as early a day as possible

 

George C.

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