Monday eve. March 17^th, 1862

My Dear Wife:-

I fear you are anxiously looking for letters from me and receiving none.  Not that I do not write, for I have wrote to you three letters since I have been here, but it is reported here that our letters are detained at Commerce, Cape Girardeau and Cairo, and if that is the case, I am sure you are very uneasy about me.

I think one of our men by the name of Sidwall will be discharged tomorrow.  If so I will send this letter by him and you will be sure to get it, as he will either take it to Patoka or mail it somewhere along the line.  I have received one letter from John Foster since I have been here and sent him an answer, but if you do not get your letters, he will not get that.  I have wrote several notes to the neighbors so that you might possibly by that means hear from me.  I am now looking for a big letter from you by every mail, for I wrote you from Cape Girardeau by Mrs. R.F. Young and then again from Commerce, with the word not to write to me till you heard me telling you where to direct to.  So I will expect an answer to all three at once and I suppose it will make quite a large letter which I hope to get soon.

I see by the latest papers that we have, that our forces have gained a splendid victory in Arkansas, also that Manassas has been evacuated and burned, that our forces have been doing well upon the coast of Florida.  Surely the war cannot last very much longer.  The enemy may possibly collect at some inaccessible spot and give us a great deal of trouble.  They will certainly make a grand stand at the much boasted stronghold of Memphis, which place I now think will be our next place of attack.  There is yet some room for a flight in this neighborhood for when the rebels evacuated Columbus, the second Manassas as they proudly termed Columbus, they dropped down to Island No. 10 where they are making a stand and there is no telling how long they will be there before we can overcome them, as there can be nothing done except with heavy cannon and we can only come at them from the upper river.  So they can make all their defence at that point.  I do hope however to yet be able to announce in this letter the arrival of our gunboats at New Madrid.

I have never yet been down in town.  Jack Foster and Clay and John Hamilton have been there with General Stanley, they being part of his bodyguard.  There was not any person at all left in the place, neither citizen or soldier.  They destroyed an immense amount of their property before they left and they threw a great many of their cannon in the river, which our men are busy getting out.  They have succeeded in raising enough to make the whole number now in our possession from capture, 64.

Major Applington yesterday evening joined our Regiment with the Third Battalion of our Regiment.  They have been at Birds Point till now.  There is still one company of our Regiment at Cape Girardeau.  If they was here now our whole Regiment would be together once more.

Captain Ghalegar lost two of his men killed at Charleston, Missouri while they was scouting as they came here.  There is accidents happening here every day.  There has been one man killed and several wounded by the explosion of the bomb shells that have been picked up after they was thrown at us.  Then there is occasionally one gets shot by the accidental discharge of guns and pistols and it is a matter of wonder to me that there is not more shot than there is, there being so many that are careless in the handling of their arms.

It is now night and there has been a heavy cannonading going on for some time up at Island no. 10 and still continues.  The firing is certainly the heaviest that I have ever heard.  It is about twelve miles from here and the shocks are quite heavy.  I do hope that the morning the Rebels may be completely whipped out and give it up there.

As it was your request some time ago, for me to be vaccinated, I will have it done in a day or two.  I applied to the Surgeon at the hospital a few days ago to get it done and he had no vaccine but said he would have some in a few days and would do it for me.  I should have had it done during the winter, but it would have been troublesome for me to bundle myself up on our scouts.

There is none of our Company now in the hospital and but few of the Regiment.  I rather think that gunpowder and exercise makes healthy soldiers.  Foster Moon is improving in health.  The rest of the boys are all well.  F.W. Arnold is still driving a team.  The rest of the boys are lamming around at their regular duties.  We are again drilling every day, two or three hours, then we have Dress Parade almost every day.

I wrote to you and to John Foster to have the Salem Advocate stopped unless they would direct it to the Regiment as well as the Company, so that I can get it, which I hope you will get him to see to at once.

I think we will be paid off again in a few days, but I do not know how we will manage about sending our money home.  If I can do no better I think I will risk sending you a few dollars in a letter, if we should be paid off soon.

I would be very glad to be at home but do not now expect to very soon, unless there should be a great change in the military affairs of this world very soon.  I hope however that you will make the best of your situation and try to be of a good cheer as you possibly can in the hope that Peace may soon be restored to our once happy country, and that we may soon all be able to return to our families to enjoy the Peace that will be the better enjoyed in consequence of having assisted in a very small degree to establish it.

Oh! My God, with what shame ought the faces of our quasi Union neighbors to burn, but shame is no part of their natures, or they would have died of shame years ago.

My sentiments towards such is well known to all the neighborhood, so that there is a very little use for me to withhold my opinion of them, even if I desire to do so.  My prayer is that all traitors at home and abroad may soon see the error of their ways and repent, lest the proper judgment overtake them before they are aware that they are spotted by the authorities of this, the United States.  Such are to be pitied.  How is it now there with these that thought that the Northern men would not fight.  Are they still of the same opinion, and can one Southern man still whip five Northern men.  They are certainly bound to acknowledge in all truth and candor that they was mistaken for once.  What do they think of the Southern men that abandon their forts without even the show of a fight.

I hope you will send the children to school all the time that you can and try to encourage them to obey you.  There is a great deal depends upon their minding you.  Tell Diora that I want her to try to see how soon she can learn to write me a letter.  Tell Byron that he must learn to read so that I can get him a paper with pictures in it, and while I think of it I want you to have the Circuit Preacher continue Diora’s paper and I will send you the money to pay him.  Tell M. Hester that when “Pa” comes home he will bring her a nice little book.  Tell W. Scott and Rollin what you think best.  Tell Delila that she must come to see me this summer.  And tell Mrs. Mary Smith for me that I will come to see her as soon as circumstances will permit and this one, without omitting anything, and the next and all the rest and if there is anything that I neglect to write about, if she will just tell me what it is, I will try to do better.  Tell her to direct till further ordered, to New Madrid, Missouri.  And tell her further, that the bugles are now sounding tattoo, which is a hint to go to bed and further tell her that this sheet of paper is ruined and that I know she is sleepy, so I had better not bother her any more tonight.

Wishing you all a good nights sleep and pleasant dreams, I bid you good bye.

William A. Smith