 Iowa In the Civil War |
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Camp Hereon, Sept. 4/62 Thursday eve. My Dear Wife Sarah: I hope you will not get tired of my scribbling but I must write once more before we leave this camp. We are ordered to leave here for St Louis tomorrow morning at 2 oclock. You can find out by Davis folks wether we go in the morning or not. He will leave here in the morning at 7. He will let his folks know wether we have gone or not. It does not make much difference where we are as long as we cannot go home. If we have got work to do we might as well be at it. We are all prepared. We have got good guns and equipment and all ready to fight but we may not be in any battle for some time and perhaps never. We shall go into camp in St. Louis I expect. How long we shall stay there is uncertain. I shall write to you when we get there. I shall expect to hear from you in a few days. The ladies of Davenport gave us a fine supper tonight. There has a company just came in here from Marion. It is dark and I have not been out to see them. I do not expect there is any unit that I am acquainted with but we are glad to see any one from Linn County. I must close now and bid you good night A. P. Mitchell 9 No .2 Benton Barracks Sept. 9 1862 My Dear Wife Another day has passed and I find myself seated with pen ink and paper to converse a while with you, The above represents a small portion of these Campgrounds. It is a very pretty place, everything is kept neat as can be. We all have to dress up, black our boots (which by the way happens to be shoes) once a day and go out on what is called dress parade, which comes off at about sunset or a little before, that lasts about thirty minutes and then we are dismissed until eight oclock, then the roll is called and every man must answer to his name or be put on double duty the next or put in the guard house or punished in some other way. At nine oclock the lights are extinguished and every one must be in bed. At daybreak we all have to be up and answer to roll call again. At six we have breakfast and do not have anything to do until nine or ten oclock when we go out and drill about an hour and a half and the same length of time in the afternoon. It is an awful lazy life, which agrees with most of us first rate. There is a large number of paroled prisoners here that were taken in the battle of Pittsburg Landing. They have been returned by the Rebbles on Parole (that is they take the oath not to take up arms against them. They are waiting here to be exchanged and then they can Join our army again. We expect to leave here next Friday and go to Rolla in this state, that is 180 miles south west of this place. We shall go by Rail Road. We probably shall not stop there long. We shall then be under the command of General Herring. You can look on the map of the Southern States and see Camp Benton and probably Rolla and other places where we may be. It is possible that we may stay here a number of weeks. Some of the boys are writing and some are raising the old harry in every way they can, some are singing, some are fiddling and dancing and others are in bed asnoring, so you must excuse mistakes. There is such a confusion here that it is almost impossible for me to write. Every one in our company is well and in good spirits and I hope this will find you sow The drum has beat for roll call and I must leave at once. Wednesday Sept. 10, after dinner. We are having quite warm weather. It is about as warm here as it was in harvest in Iowa. Nothing of importance has taken place since last night. (wonder we that could have been). The 99th Illinois Regt. left here this morning for Rolla. There is a Regiment leaving here about every day and others come in here so that about the name number is kept here all the time. 0 t came near forgetting to tell you that I have been washing my clothes yesterday and today. I washed one shirt and a pair of stockings yesterday, dried them and put them on this morning and this forenoon washed again. We have aplenty of soap and good water for washing but it is rather poor drinking water, no bad taste to it but it is rather warm. We can get good water by fetching it about half a mile or we can get aplenty of ice by paying for it. We can but anything here we want. There is nothing you can mention that is not brought here to sell. All kinds of fruit, pies, cakes, milk and corndodgers. 10 All kinds of vegetables and in fact every thing you can name but it is very little of such trash that I buy. I have been using the needles you sent me today to sew on some buttons and mend my pockets and I have been washing and mending so as to ready when we leave here. I do not expect we shall find another so comfortable a place as this is. Tell you Father that this is the place That Fremont fitted up a year ago last summer. He fixed things up in good shape. I have written to you once before since we came here. I will number my letters after this and then you will know wether you get them all or not. This will be Number 2. I will send you a paper before we leave here and perhaps I shall write again. I shall write when we get to Rolla if not before. You must not be disappointed if you do not hear from me quite so often after we leave here. There may be obstructions on the mail route and I may not have the chance to write so much as I would like to. Cyril is writing by the side of me. I must write Father and Mother tomorrow. You must write to them if you can. I want you to tell me when you write again what you are agoing to call the baby. Call her Mary Ellen if you like the name. I expect it would please Mother to have her called Mary E. Mothers name you know is Mary. You can do just as you like and I shall be pleased. I have got to the bottom so Good By. A.P. Mitchell
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