Amos W. Kibbee Letter, 1862 August 18

Scope Note:

We have been having about the busiest time we have had since I entered the Army. You probably have heard through the public prints of the bands of guerillas that infest the country around here and for the past month we have been engaged in hunting them from their hiding places, which has been no easy task, I assure you. We came back to camp day before yesterday for the first time in nearly four weeks. We have been in the cane brakes of the Hatchie River bottoms nearly all the time. We have done a great deal of hard riding, some fighting, wading, swimming and not exactly starving, but we have been hungry a great many times. My company has had no man killed, two wounded and one taken prisoner. During the whole rounds the battalion has killed 100 men killed and taken prisoner of the enemy, about forty, and I think have pretty nearly rid the country of their presence ... the soldier belongs to his country, whose interests must be considered paramount to all private considerations of our feelings. But even duty cannot rob me of the memory of the past or hope of the future ... When our company first entered the service, we numbered about 90. Today we mustered every man able for duty, and but 41 answered to their name. The rest are numbered in the list of killed, wounded, missing and scattered in hospitals, or discharged. When I look around upon our decimated band and call to mind the absent ones, I could but feel sad and gloomy. But little more than one third of our term of enlisment has expired, and I will let that pass. There is a prospect of our being sent home to recruit the company to its maximum number again and if we are, perhaps I can get leave to make you a short visit ... my whiskers and mustache ... have disappeared before the edge of the resonant steel wielded by the hand of a ... barber ... They have gone, but not forever ... for ... with the frosts of returning winter, they will spring forth and spread their protecting shield over the lower part of my ugly face & I shall not be either spunky or jealous if you write to some other soldier, for well I know their feelings and yearning for news from those they have left at home ... Oh that the bloody war would cease. I am so tired of ... blood and scenes of horror. I sometimes feel, when looking upon the victims of strife, that their fate is preferable to mine, for they are in peace and at rest. 'Tis a fearfull thing, Hattie, to have the blood of your fellow man upon your hands, no matter what the provcocation. Oh what a fearful load of quiet rests upon the heads of the projectors of this war. The curses of their countrymen will follow them to their graves ... But there is light ahead now, for we are beginning to make the rebels feel that there is a war and upon them rests the responsibility of its continuance. We have quit taking forage and rations with us when on scouts and marches and relying upon finding it among the inhabitants. I tell you it makes the old Secesh planters make wry faces, when they see a trooper's blue jacklets riding up to their yards and hitching their horses to shade trees. They call for dinner. You just ought to see the negroes flying around with their skillets and pan and show their ivory "Massas" big Secesh,[that] 'I wants to go along [with] yer' [meaning the troops]. Ah, Hattie, we can do nothing with so many of them. They are running away by hundreds. We have some six or eight in camp doing our work. My mess has a Black cook, who does very well. We find some of these Negroes are quite sensible about these matters of freedom. The most of them think the will ultimately be freed, which I believe myself, but I think they are not hastening the time any by running away, for generally speaking they are as well off at home, as in our camps. Let them wait and bide their time. There has been some blodoy fighting in Richmond, or rather in Virginia, and we have rather conflicting accounts of the result, although I believe it to be favorable to our side. There were two Ohio regiments badly cut up. How do people around there [feel] about the draft ... I hope neither of your brothers have to go, unless they feel disposed to volunteer ... I am liable to be called away at any time to places where it is impossible to write. We are situated different from infantry, for they generally move in larger bodies and keep up communication with camps ...