Decatur, Alabama

Friday evening, August 29^th, 1862

My Dear Wife:-

The patrols brought me a letter dated Aug. 17^th.  I was expecting it in yesterdays mail, but was disappointed.  Our muster rolls came yesterday, so I could not go on patrol today, but have been busy at work on them all day.  I will have to work on them tomorrow for we will be mustered for pay on Sunday morning.  I hardly have time to write any at all, but Sergeant Major Noller came to order a detail to kill beef and had an armful of paper and envelopes for headquarters, so he have me this sheet of fine paper and said for me to wrote you a big letter, but I hardly know how to begin, for I have lately wrote you some large letters.

You have seen before this time that Baton Rouge was not taken by the rebels, but that they was driven back by our forces, yet the cloud hangs heavily over us.  Fort Donaldson is abandoned.  Frankfort surrendered, Nashville threatened and Pope actually retreating before Richmond.  You remark that the darkest hour is just before day.  If that is the case in respect to the present war, the break of day is certainly close at hand.

In this part of the country the cloud certainly hangs with more than Egyptian darkness.  It seems that the whole country will have to be laid waste before the rebels will stop destroying the railroads and cutting the telegraph lines.

There is almost every day some skirmishing going on in this neighborhood, and they generally terminate against us.  I hope however that the scale will soon turn and give us a chance to vindicate the right.  There is a report here that a fight is going on near Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Again Buell has whipped Beauregard and taken a lot of prisoners.  I hardly know how the matter stands but before you receive this you will know the truth of the whole matter.  One thing I do know, that our forces in this vicinity that can be spared, are on the double quick for Nashville, Tennessee.

Two of our men was yesterday sent to Huntsville with despatches for General Buell.  They returned today and say that nearly all the troops are gone from there towards Battle Creek, where the Chattanooga battle is said to have been fought.  Lieut. Lee and me went with them across the river about seven miles to Brownsville station, where we found a few men of the10th Ohio Regiment guarding a bridge and water tank.  They are inside of a good stockade or block house.  There is nothing short of artillery or starvation that can get them out of there.

The country over there is something like the valley on this side of the river, except not so rocky.  There is not much corn growing over there as there is here on this side of the river.  There is not much cotton growing there either, but thousands of acres of weeds.  The whole country has a desolate deserted appearance.  It seems to be a vast farm belonging to a poor widow.  What cotton is cultivated this season looks tolerably well.  It is about as high as your waist and beginning to open nicely.  There is no wheat raised in this country that is worth anything.  There is some good cattle and if you could see the number of cow skins on the fences, you would think that soldiers love beef, then the sheep fare no better.

You ask me my opinion in regard to the supplies of the South and the prospect of their being starved out?  Now I can hardly form any idea of the matter.  In Mississippi where we was, there is not corn enough raised for the use of the citizens, but here in northern Alabama there is a great deal of corn raised, but it is not a very wide scope of country to the hilly country, then there is not much corn raised there.  My own opinion is that there is even now a great scarcity of provision in the south and before another season there must be a great deal of suffering for breadstuff.

I can form no better idea than you about the number of men that the Confederacy can yet raise.  In the rich parts of the country, there is very few white people lives in times of peace.  They are nearly all avowed secessionists and have ran off south to keep from being arrested.  Then in the mountains the poorer class lives and they are nearly all in the army to avoid the Conscript Act.  I rather think that the rebels have pushed the matter harder along the border than they have in the interior, on account of the number that come out and join our army, of which I have already told you.  The bugle sounds, so good night.

Saturday morning, August 30^th, 1862

You ask me to tell you “how slavery looks with the naked eye.”  Now it would take more time than I can spare today, to tell you how it looks.  A soldier has a very poor chance to learn much of the good or evil of any such a thing, only so far as such things fall under his immediate observation.  You remember that I once wrote to a friend in a slave state, to know his views upon the practical working of slavery.  You well remember his answer.  I will not give you such an answer.  I have no fear of committing my thoughts to paper.

Now the question, “how does slavery look to the naked eye”?  The shortest answer that I can give and express myself upon the subject is that it looks many times worse than I ever imagined!  It is true that I have never saw the lash across the backs of old men and grey headed women, but I have seen men plow, hoe, chop and maul rails, with not enough clothing on them to hide their bodies.  I have saw pregnant women (as I have commenced I will tell part of it at least) at the hardest work, with only an excuse for a skirt and short petticoat on, both ragged and torn in all possible ways, when it would seem that they was on the very eve of confinement.  I have seen dozens of men and women and children at the different kinds of work under a white man that was almost as ignorant as the slaves he drove.  I have seen one woman that has tended eighteen acres of corn and suckled an infant that was born after she commenced to break the ground.

I have seen a young wife, modest and nice, walking along the street, a slave woman walking close behind her carrying the first born of her modest mistress.  Look at their figures, it is very nearly the same, see their backs, O says one, they are both alike.  Look at their gait, it is nearly the same, examine their features, look close, they certainly resemble.  Ask the young mistress where she got her slave, she tells you that she was a wedding gift from her father.  The secret is out, they are half sisters.  Look at them again, they favor in every feature and action.  The only difference is in the color.  Great God!  Who is responsible for this sin.  Is it the Abolitionists of Illinois, or is it the Amalgamtionists in Mississippi or Alabama?  Such cases are not rare.  I have saw it in Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama (and you have seen a specimen of it from Virginia, you know what case I refer to).

Such is slavery as seen by me with the naked eye, and yet even the slave owners themselves tell us that the slaves along our lines are allowed to do as they please, since our army came here, and that they are treated much worse farther south.  I had intended not to write anything about slavery in any of my letters and would not have do so now, if you had not asked me do it.  Should I ever be permitted to return home, I can show you some facts that I have collected in regard to slavery, which I have not time to write to you now.

Your question “what do you think of the citizens, etc”.  I do talk with the citizens every chance that I have.  There is some very intelligent men and women in the southern states.  One man that I talk with here is a noted politician of the Alabama Legislature.  He is a states Rights man and can quote Richardson (of Illinois), Vallandigham and Olds of Ohio, as well as uncle Ross can the Bible.  By the way, you will see that Olds is arrested and is in military limbo.  This man here draws more consolation from Richardson and company of the North than he does from all the sayings of the leaders of the Southern Confederacy.  He says the whole people, both north and south, are to blame for the present rebellion.  He denies however that it is a rebellion.  He says it is Nullification by the north and blames the President Buchannan for not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law.  He says that this war will end in a Military Despotism.  He says Douglas turned Abolitionist before he died.  He says that Richardson said in a speech that the Democracy of the north would not help subjugate the south, not fight for an Abolitionist President.  That Richardson said that the war was commenced by the President to free the slaves in the southern states.

I see no change in the morals of the men since we have been in the service, except one of two that went from Marion County, have begun playing cards to be like other men.

The last time I heard preaching was when I went to Headquarters about the first of the month.  Our Chaplain stays there.

I am glad that hose apples prove to be a good variety, they are the early Strawberry instead of the early Harvest.

If John has time when he is at home, he had better bring all the tools home and you can put them in the tool chest and other places and try to take care of them.  If I live till two years from next Wednesday, I expect to come home, then I will try to tend to them myself.

I think you had better get George to take down the door and you go with him to Mr. Goldsboro shop and get him to fix it good.  He can make it as strong as ever, if it is the front tile (or upright side piece) that is off.  Tell Mr. Goldsboro to fix it good and charge it to me.

You have ere this received my letter containing the account of the skirmish that we was in.  Allen Clow’s wound is doing tolerable well as is Sergeant Guy’s and Lieut. Breezes.  John M. Hamiltons mare was not killed as we thought, but wounded in three places.  She came in last Thursday with the whole rigging on her, even to the sabre.

Tell me about the Circuit Court, for the Salem Advocate does not come now.  They certainly don’t send it now.

Robert F. Young is not enjoying very good health, in fact we was sick in the hospital at Jacinto, but got better and was tolerably well till the time of our fight.  His horse got away and he had to lay down in a field of weeds to hide from the rebels.  He was wet with sweat and there came up a heavy shower of rain while he was lying there and he has been nearly sick ever since.  The rebels rode close to him while he was there.  There is now eleven of our boys gone, among them is old Mr. Goodbrake that I told you was coming home to recruit for our Company.

I expect you will need another bedstead this winter.  If you do, you can get pap to buy one for you at Salem.  He can get you a very good bedstead  for about seven dollars and if you need the bedstead, tell him about it an he will buy it the first time he goes to town to mill.  If Henry Fraka is not gone to the war, I hope you will get him to finish the smoke house.

If there is school this fall, I want the children to go every day that their health and weather permit.

Hoping that you and the children are well, I close.

William A. Smith.

P.S. Charlie says for you to burn this without reading it.