The following correspondence contains wording that is offensive to many in the world of today. However, the correspondence is provided unedited for its historical content and context.
(excerpts)
from Camp near Chesterfield Station:
“. . . My home is in a wild pine grove and sweetest melancholy, poesy’s child, keeps watch and ward over my innocent spirit. I sit on my bench and muse on the time when the Yank-Yanks shall meet me in battle array and when, ‘Virginia leaning on her spear,’ I shall retire on my laurels with one arm and no legs to some secluded dell to sigh away my few remaining years in blissful ignorance. But a truce to such deep Philosophy. We are all jogging along as usual. All the day I long for night, and all the night I long for its continuance. In fact it is very disagreeable to get up to attend Reveillé roll-call, as I do every fourth morning, and it is vastly more pleasant to remain in my comfortable (?) bed and have no other care upon my mind than that of keeping warm with the least exertion possible. But then comes that inevitable too-diddle-tooty, too-diddle-tooty, &c., &c., &c., and up I have to jump and go out in the cold to hear that Von Spreckelson and Bullwinkle are absent and look at the exciting process of dealing out corn in a tin cup. . . . The snowing began before daylight yesterday morning and kept it up with scarcely an interval until late last night. It fell to a depth of about nine inches. This morning1, the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas Regiments came by our camp, marching in irregular line of battle, with their colors gotten up for the occasion, and with skirmishers thrown out in advance, and passing us, attacked the camp of the 3rd Arkansas, which is immediately on our right. A fierce contest ensued, snow balls being the weapons. The Texans steadily advanced, passing up the right of the camp; the Arkansians stubbornly disputing their progress, and their shouts and cheers as they would make a charge, or as the fight would become unusually desperate, made the welkin ring. A truce was finally declared and all four regiments marched over the creek to attack Anderson’s brigade. After crossing they formed in line, deployed their skirmishers, and at it they went. The Georgians got rather the best of the fight and drove them back to the creek, where they made a stand and fought for some time. They then united and started back across the Massoponax for Genl. Law’s brigade. Just before arriving opposite our camp they saw another brigade coming over the top of the hill behind their camp (i. e., Anderson’s) and back they went to meet them. How that fight terminated I don’t know. . . . I suppose this rain and snow will retard the movements of the enemy too much for them to attempt to cross for some time to come. . . . Yesterday and to-day have been lovely days and I trust that the weather will clear up and continue so. I expect Burnside feels very grateful for the interposition of the elements to give him an excuse for deferring a little longer the evil day on which he is forced to attack us or be decapitated. . . . I saw in my ride the other day a body of Yankees, apparently a Regiment, drawn up in line, firing. They were using blank cartridges I suppose. This looks as though they had some very fresh troops. If that is the case they had better keep them out of the fight, as they will do precious little good in it. . . .
“Christmas eve we went to see the Hood’s Minstrels perform. One of the best performances was ‘We are a band of brothers’ sung by three make-believe darkies, dressed entirely in black, with tall black hats and crêpe hatbands, looking more like a deputation from a corps of undertakers than anything else—and was intended, I suppose, as a burlesque upon Puritanism. At all events it was supremely ridiculous. . . . I understand that several of the tailors in Charleston have committed suicide lately, driven to it by the ruinously low rates at which their wares (no pun intended) are now selling. They can only obtain two hundred and fifty dollars for a second lieutenant’s uniform coat and pantaloons. Poor wretches! They should bear their burdens with more patience, however, and remember that (according to the newspaper) the hardships of this war fall on all alike and must be endured by high and low, rich and poor, equally. I saw Col. Jenifer who told me he had met Papa and Mama at a party at Col. Ives’s in the city of Richmond. Isn’t that dissipation for you? Do they have cake ‘and sich’ at parties now, or is it merely ‘a feast of reason and a flow of soul?’ And in conclusion tell me of my overcoat. Have you seen it? If not, has anybody else seen it? If not, how long will it be, in all human probability, and speaking well within the mark, before somebody else will see it?. . . My old one has carried me through two winters and is now finishing the third in a sadly dilapidated condition. There is a sort of ‘golden halo, hovering round decay,’ about it, which may perhaps be very poetical, but is far from being practical as regards its weather resisting qualities. . . . ”
(Note: picture is of an unidentified Confederate soldier.)
- The date of the excerpts of a letter from was determined by a description of the snowball fight on website mentalfloss.com (accessed 6-16-2020), very similar to that described above by Francis Wigfall.
“the First and Fourth Texas Infantry put their military training to work. On the morning of January 29, they launched a major snowball offensive against their comrades in the Fifth Texas Infantry, who somehow repelled their attackers before deciding to join them in a snow assault on the Third Arkansas Infantry, which surrendered quickly beneath a slushy barrage…”