Camp near Booneville, Mississippi

June 9^th, 1862

My Dear Wife:-

The mail has just come and it almost made me sick to find that there was no letter for me.  It has been almost two weeks since I received a letter from you and it (?) that I have not heard from you for a month or two.  I hope that tomorrow’s mail will bring me several letters and I think that two of them will be from you.  I have received two Commercials of last month, thank you.  I hope you will send me some more when it is convenient.  We are now encamped about one mile from where we were when I last wrote to you.  The 35^th Illinois is on the ground that we then occupied.  Your uncle was there last Sunday and yesterday evening.  Sergt. Breeze and me went over there and to some other regiments.  Hartsock is 2^nd Lieut. of Company “C” of the 38^th.  Thomas McConnell is rather unwell.  Isaac Jones is back at Hamburg in the hospital.  It is about fifty miles from here back to Hamburg.  It takes one team five days to go there and back here.

I suppose that Eldridge Jones started from home yesterday morning.  If so, he is now at Cairo or coming up the river and will be here in three or four days.  I hope that John M. Hamilton may soon be able to rejoin us.  John is missed very much from the Company.  I learn that William Arnold is still in the hospital at St. Louis.  Sergeant Beebe is there with the small pox.  Treibel, our Quartermaster at home is not much better and there is no telling when he will be here. I hope he may be soon able to be here for he is a first rate fellow.  Corporal John Goodbrake is now acting in his place.  Captain Koehler today received his commission as Major of our Regiment.  We now have no Captain.  We will have to elect one in a few days.  In my next I may be able to tell you who is our Captain.  The matter lies between our two Lieutenants, C.F. Lee and Asa W. McDonald.  I think so well of both of them that I could hardly decide which to vote for.

I have not saw any of the boys of the 40^th or 41^st Regiments since the time that I wrote to you.  I do not know where they are now.  I had intended to go to see the 41^st in company with Hamilton Jordan or Co. “E” of our Regiment.  He has a brother in the same company with John Boring.  But poor fellow he was killed at the Tuscumbia river.  You will remember that I spoke in a former letter of two men of Co. “I” being killed and two wounded.  Jordan was one of them.  I do not think that you knew him.  He was one that lived on the Mrs. Black old farm.  He was a Corporal and a very sociable and nice fellow.  He rests in a soldiers grave.

You must certainly excuse me for this short note, for my mind is everywhere but with my pen.  I may possibly write to you again tomorrow, especially if tomorrows mail brings me anything from you.  Yours last received is still behind in my trunk but I expect to get my trunk tomorrow.  I will then write to you in answer to it.  I will write to Billy as soon as I have the chance.  Hoping that this may find you and the children well, I bid you good bye.

William A. Smith