1861 – An early soldier’s letter describing the bittersweet march through his hometown as his unit left to muster into service and the inedibility of bread provided by the camp kitchen

Item Details

Near Portland, Tennessee, 1861, Letter

Very Good

Four-page letter without its mailing envelope. The letter is datelined “Camp Trousdale TN. 27 [May], ‘61". The letter was sent by “Willie” to his sister. In nice shape.

In this letter, Willie emotionally describes his unit’s departure from Camp Lee, just outside of Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee, as it marched through its hometown to assemble at Camp Trousdale near Portland.

“We left ‘Camp Lee’ (near Mt Pleasant) last monday [and] arrived here the wednesday following after a forced march of three days. I left home on the Sunday evening before, went to camp, & pitched tents. . .. The next morning [after departing camp] we passed through about 9½ A.M. were there were a great many people waiting to see us pass. . .. As we passed, I saw some of the little boys straining every nerve to catch a glimpe of Brother Jack & Wille perhaps for the last time. . .. Twas hard sister to pass through & by our brothers and friends, & not be permitted to say ‘Good bye’. I saw Uncle Hugh as he stood on the street with tears in his eyes perhaps he thought ‘there goes my two boys’. . .. Oh, twas hard to bear. Then the many friends . . . that were [in] the crowd, some looking as tho’ they were sorry, others with smiling faces [wished] us a merry good by. . .."

He further confessed in a long passage that although he broken-heartedly looked in vain for “one look from the eye that kindles this electric spark of love in the very inmost depths of [my] heart,” he did not see a young woman he loved from afar without ever declaring his love and had “never sparked her [as he] didn’t have the opportunity.” It was only later at Camp Trousdale when a friend told him that she felt the same that his ‘heart leaped for joy, & raised the ‘Flag of Rebellion’ like the glorious South [that] refuses to be conquered. . ..”

He reported that camp life was “tolerably well,” and that he and two friends had brought “two bags with us to cook and mash,” and that she “aught to have eatin some beefsteak I fried the other morning; in deed it was very good, tho’ I say it myself. . ..” His only complaint was about the “Bakers bread . . . ‘tis miserable stuff, it is giving me the Dyspepsia & is making all the boys sick in some way. . .. I am going to quit eating it at all, I wont now unless I have no other, if we could get flour, we could do very will . . . very well. We have plenty of other things, [but the bread] baked here in Camp . . . tis miserable. . ..”He also noted that “we are getting a good deal of sickness here in [this] camp [of] “4,000 to 5,000 men” but none of his unit was in “the Hospitall [of which he was] “more afraid of than ‘Lincolns horde’. . ..”

The dates and locations mentioned in the letter strongly suggest that Wille was a member of the Bigby Greys, from the small market town of Mt. Pleasant, which first assembled at nearby Camp Lee before marching 90 miles north to officially muster into service at Camp Trousdale and be redesignated as Company C, 3rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment. If so, it surrendered at Fort Donelson, however, after being paroled and exchanged, it returned to serve with distinction at Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta campaign.

(For more information, see “The Bigby Greys” at the online Historical Marker Database.)

#10534