Brother of Mine by Hampton Smith

Author:Hampton Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-87351-810-9
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2010-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

William Christie to Alexander Christie

VICKSBURGH MISSISSIPPI, AGUST 20TH 1863

Dear Brother. This morning is Rainy. Raw and disagreeable, So you see by every letter I write to you there is always something wrong with the weather. Tis either too hot or its opposite, or too wet or too dry, and in fact there is no Pleasing of humanity or at least this small portion of it that addresses you I Believe I would growl if I were going to be hanged, no matter how soft the Rope, or accommodating the hangman. So you will have the little Corporal among you and one or two others of the Bould soger Boys, use them well, and see that they will Be well used by the Infernal Copperheads that slip and crawl round among you. within the past two weeks we have lost two members of our Battery By Death. one of them a detailed man from the 17th Wis. his name was James Bray, he enlisted at Janesville, Whiskey I Believe was the Reason he had to Pay dame Nature the debt due her. the other died on the evening of the 17th. he was a german a very good man, and succumbed to Dysentry and Ague.47 so there are great numbers going off with one ailment and another, which might be expected among so many men, where so few know or understand But little about the laws of health, or any of the phisical laws of Nature. But the Death of a fellow soldier, is a thing that is not calculated to shock us very much as long as it is in the field or Hospital. But when the lives of a number of men and some women is taken unexpectedly, and in the shocking manner that a number Perished yesterday; it makes even the most thoughtless of us feel afraid, or something akin to fear, at least it does me, yesterday morning I was detailed with some others of the Battery to go to the Levee for hay. we had slayed quite a while Before we got our hay, and about noon as we were leaving the Levee, I saw a great cloud of smoke flame and steam, and a loud prolonged roar as if a great gun had Burst. But we soon learned that it was the City of Madison, a goverment transport, that had nearly completed her load of Ammuntion.48 I left the waggons and hasttend in the Direction of the scene of Disaster, having about sixty rods to run. What a sight when I got to the Boat, or where she had Been, there she lay or what was left of her. a small portion of upper deck and the stern besides the right hand Wheel-house, she was, at the time of the horrible accident, getting up steam so that she might Procceed to Natchez. But as her load was not complete there was a large Detail of as many as eighty men at work getting aboard the

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