Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Jackson, Tenn.,
February 25, 1863.
I guess it’s full two weeks since I wrote you last, excepting a half sheet a few days ago. My reason is that it has been raining ever since, and my tent leaks so that (that’s rather a larger story than I think you’ll swallow, so I’ll not spoil paper by finishing it); but, Scotland, how it does rain here. Commences slowly and gently, comes straight down and continues coming for about 24 hours in the same manner. Mercury at about 35 degrees. Then the wind will commence blowing, cool, cooler, cold. Stop the rain, scatter the clouds, and getting warm again will, in a day or so, gather the moisture from the surface, and probably give us one pleasant day, rarely more. It seems to me there has not been a day this winter when the sun shone, and the air was calm, that I needed a fire, and I remember but one day during which the mercury sunk as low as 10 degrees. We had two nice “falls” of snow, but they found they’d lit in the wrong country and evacuated in quick time. It can’t snow here to much advantage, but I am sure the rest of the world could learn from this region on the rain question. Canton is a parlor compared to this town. Part of the town is on rolling ground, but the hillside seems even muddier than the valleys. This town is thrice the size of Canton, and has ten times as many costly dwellings, but the sidewalks and streets will not compare with yours. The arrangements of gardens is passable and much taste is shown in the distribution of evergreens. One gentleman living between our camp and town has 10,000 pines, hollies, cedars, etc., in the grounds surrounding his house. The grounds comprise maybe fifteen acres. I mean he had 10,000 trees, but the Yankees burned the fences around his paradise, and have in various ways managed to destroy a few thousand evergreens A kind of a parody, you understand, on that Bible story of the devil in Eden. Colonel Kellogg is here to-night, but goes to Memphis to-morrow where he will join Colonel Babcock. They may both be here again within a week, but it is not certain. He says we may be thankful we are not in the Yazoo Swamp or at Vicksburg, but two months heavy picketing here have rendered me unable to see it in that light. Our pickets have been fired on twice during the last two days. Nobody hurt, I believe. We have news to-night of General Dodge, of Corinth, capturing some 200 prisoners and a train of wagons at Tuscumbia, Ala. How I do wish we could be sent into that country again. It’s worth all the rest of the South that I have seen. I have 11 negroes in my company now. They do every particle of the dirty work. Two women among them do the washing for the company. Three babies in the lot, all of which have run barefooted all the winter, and though they have also run at the nose, etc., some, seem to be healthy all the time.