Letter 1
East Point, Georgia
September 8, 1864
Dear Mary,
All glorious, victorious! We have now returned to this point to take our promised rest. Since writing the within letter, we have followed the enemy to near Griffin, Georgia, & left them to take a little rest & came back to enjoy the fruit of our labors. I shall know within 2 weeks whether I can get out before the 19th of November. The campaign has ended most gloriously & all from Gen. Sherman to the meanest private feel jubilant—happy—crazy with joy & for hours after dark every night the air resounds with cheers from thousands of victorious throats. Never did any army accomplish more in the same length of time & never did an army appreciate what they had done any better.
Just two weeks ago today we retired from the Rebel front at Atlanta ¹ & today we are back having whipped the whole Rebel army in 2 pitched battles, driven them at least half way to Macon, captured & sent to the rear 2200 sound prisoners, & 800 wounded ones, buried 4 or 500 of them, placed hors de combat at least 3,000 more & came very near capturing the whole of Hardee’s Corps & would but for the cowardice and imbecility of Gen. Stanley commanding the 4th Corps have drove them from what they had begun to believe was the Gibraltar of the South, causing them to destroy 80 carloads of ammunition (640 tons), all their vast magazines, vast quantities of stores and munitions of war, &c. &c. In fact, everything has some around to make our victory complete coming over here I talked with an old citizen & he told me that the Rebs got up a great ball in Atlanta in celebration of Sherman’s defeat and retreat across the Chattahoochee. They felt so good that they invited all their big bug friends from Macon & other towns to dance with them & we cut the railroad in their rear & they had to go home way around through the country in lumber wagons. I think they will long remember Old Sherman’s Yankee trick.
September 9th. Still all well. We are very busy in fixing up our camp for a long rest. Everything is as quiet as the grave. No more so we hear the crack of the skirmisher’s rifle or the boom of the cannon. Welcome silence, welcome rest.
Last night is the first in 4 months & nearly half that I have slept without my pants on. Today the 1st I have had on my uniform clothes—gay and happy now. If you people up North don’t rejoice now over our great victory & over the successful—yea, glorious—ending of our campaign, I don’t think much of you.
I have as yet no letter from you. I got a paper from Father in yesterday’s mail was all. There is at least 5 bushels of mail for us somewhere & when it comes, I expect at least six. I know you must be very anxious about me but I could not get off a letter any sooner. I always do as soon as I can, you know. I have always told you that they had no bullets marked Newton & so I suppose you have given yourself no uneasiness about me.
A four month campaign among bullets & danger of every kind has proved my words true. Love to all. I tender my resignation as soon as we are paid—probably 2 weeks or son.
Yours, — Don
¹ A correspondent for the Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia) submitted a column for his paper on 26 August 1864 stating that, “Last night about ten o’clock, after a day of unparalleled quiet, the enemy began to retire from our right, and this morning our line of pickets advanced and occupied the vacant works. Upon the extreme left likewise the enemy disappeared. They are understood at present to be massed on our centre, but whether this sudden movement means a retreat, or change of front, or a plan of assault no one can determine.”
Letter 2
East Point, Georgia
September 10th 1864
Dear Mary,
Three years ago this day we first went as a company to that famous Camp Lyon at Geneva [IL]. What a rain storm we had that night and how we all retreated to the court house in disgust and lay upon the floors, tables, &c. It is all as fresh in my memory as if it only happened yesterday. How many of the brave boys who went with us to that camp are today resting in soldier’s graves far from those who love them. Some are at Quincy, some at St. Louis, some at Pittsburg Landing, some at Corinth, some at Cairo, some at Mound City, & some in their family grounds who died amid their friends kindly cared for. How singular that some should have fallen so early by the ruthless hand of disease while I and many others have for 3 long years faced death, disease, & the hurtling storm of iron hail & leaden rain on many a battlefield & are today well—the monuments of an all-wise Providence. Spared—what for? None but the Almighty can tell. For good, I hope. How my brain is crowded when I attempt to think of it, of the many events crowded into 3 short years.
Yours of the 21st and 24th & one from Helen of the 21st were all received last evening. Bully for the new corporal say I. Long may he wave. May he soon get another promotion & earnestly whip all Copperheads. I can hardly repress my indignation when I read the northern papers or see men lately from the North. I feel like saying, damn the Copperheads 20 times a day. I intend to leave these parts in about two weeks. I shall if I get out as I expect spend a day or two in Atlanta, a day at Kennesaw Mountain, a day at Chattanooga & Lookout Mountain, a day at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and then hie to my Mother’s home, perhaps to St. Joe. Can’t say though. I am going to buy me at Louisville a suit of citizen clothes to wear home. I am going to stand upon the steps of the Louisville Hotel for half a day and observe what kind of clothes people wear & then am going to get a full suit of the same kind & so completely disguise myself that no one would ever know I had been a soldier & when I get upon the cars or boats if any damned Copperhead opens his mouth to utter any treasonable language in my presence, I will whip him or he shall me. I will learn them that 3 years a soldier, although in sheep’s clothing, won’t permit me to allow any treason uttered in my hearing.
Last evening we had our first dress parade for four months. Last evening I put on my uniform for the first time since the 29th day of April. I tell you, I felt as grand as a lord. It looks as odd as you please to see the officers around with their uniform suits on & we get laughed at considerable by the boys. For the first time in four months we take off our pants when we sleep & have a permanent cover over us, have soft bread to eat and things in shape.
In your letter of the 21st you say you have strange forebodings, dreams, &c. about me. I can’t see why you need to have. Have I not always told you that I was coming home—that no secesh lead was marked Newton, & could you not believe it? My faith has been just as strong as it could. well be & I never for one moment doubted it. I tried by writing to prepare you for a long period between my letters as I could force some great move just before we withdrew from before Atlanta. But I was mistaken as to the move. I thought we were going on to Montgomery, Alabama, instead of going on to the railroad south of Atlanta & I guess nearly the whole army did right up to the time we moved. I hope you did not feel any anxiety for me during the 2 or 3 weeks you did not hear from me. I did not about you although I knew you to be in nearly as great danger as myself.
About your going home, go just when you please. If you have no suitable clothes, you had not better wait thinking that I will come there for that will depend very much on how I feel when I get ready to start. If you conclude to go home, write me here and also at Louisville. Direct your letter to me at Louisville with out mentioning any regiment. Simply Capt. D. C. N., Louisville, Kentucky, as I may get off before an answer could get around here although I think not &I don’t wish to come to St. Joe if I make up my mind to go on a fool’s errand. My opinion is that if I do not get there by the 1st of October, you had better go home & not wait. But if you conclude to go at that time, write me at both places & let me know & then go as you intend. You had better lay over 1 day at Quincy on your way home and rest. Love to all. Kiss all the babies for me & tell May that Papa will soon be with her now for I am obliged to stay my time out. It is only 2 months more & that if I come to St. Joe, I will assist him or die in the attempt.
Loving yours, — D. C. Newton
Letter 3
East Point, Georgia
September 13th 1864
Dear Mary,
Yours of August 30th came down before yesterday before receiving which I had written you. Elisha’s also came but as I had written him in the morning, he must take that for an answer and write again. Tell him that as soon as I get home I think I can arrange the wagon question so it will be satisfactory to him as well as to us. At any rate, I will try to roll the wheel so as to keep him supplied & of a quality that will keep up his reputation as well as our own.
You seem to have a great deal of trouble if you don’t hear from me just so regular. You must reflect that I am a long distance away & that my letters have to be carried nearly a thousand miles over a railroad running through the heart of an enemy’s country & that they are straining every nerve at all times to keep communications broken up & that they sometimes—as during the last week—succeed for a short period. I guess if you felt bad at not getting a letter for 2 or 3 days, you grew heart sick & weary during the long 2 weeks I did not because I could not write you at all. I tried to prepare you for just such a time but I suppose you did not believe me or rather hoped it was not to come so that when it did, it was just as bitter a dose as if you had not been expecting it. Employed as we were, the time slipped by almost imperceptibly, & almost before we knew what we were about, we had performed one of the most brilliant feats any army ever accomplished and especially as large an one as Sherman wields. It was a hazardous move and one none but a bold player would have dared to make on the great chess board of war. None but a Sherman or a Grant ever conceived that such a thing could be done and even Grant telegraphed Sherman that it was a dangerous move but if he thought he could make it, to go in.
Today has been a witness of strange scenes. Gen. Sherman sent out from Atlanta 500 wagons loaded with refugees to go inside the Rebel lines. They go under a flat of truce which Gens. Sherman & Hood have established to Lovejoy Station some 5 miles below Jonesborough. There is a flag of truce as far as Rough & Ready good for 10 days and a regiment of blue coats and one of Rebs are standing guard down there intermixing, happy as clams.
Our camp is on one of the loveliest ridges running north & south the sun ever shone upon. The ground slopes rather abruptly to the east but to our front—the west—it has an almost imperceptible one for a hundred yards or so & then a little more sharp. In both front and rear and not 200 yards either way in the hollows is fine running streams of cold spring water. The officers quarters are right on the crown of the hill overlooking all, both front and rear. I think it is the pleasantest camp we have had in our 3 years service. And the boys are taking a great deal of pride in fixing it up. We are to have all new tents in a day or two and when the boys get the little white fellows, it will be as picturesque as a fairy tale.
Our camp is about 1½ miles from East Point & having heard a great deal about it, Capt. Barto, Bailey, and myself thought we would stroll up yesterday & see if we could see the Point. We went along the lines of Rebel fortifications and saw some of the queerest ones we have ever run across in all our travels. There would be long lines of rifle pits a good deal like the old Rebel ones you saw at Corinth and then there would be a great square pen of dirt with banks as high as the eaves of our kitchen & 30 to 40 feet thick with ditches around the outside 12 or 15 feet deep. They had only one small entrance to to them in the rear & would hold about a thousand men. At 2 corners & outside of all were small forts rigged for one gun at a corner. I called them Mule Corrals. Bailey [called them] Rebel Traps, but Barto crowned all. He called them Go Devils. There are some dozen of them along the line and are great curiosities to the Yanks now I tell you, and crowds of them are around looking at them all the time. ¹
We had some trouble in finding the Point & when we did, instead of a thriving village like our junction, all there was was this railroad. I expected to go into a thriving village but we acknowledge sold and retraced our steps, thinking less than ever of this God-cursed country. [sketch of village]
I do not despair of getting out soon & shall tender my papers as soon as we get our pay which will be now very soon as Paymasters are expected every day. I saw Gen. Rice today & was assured that my resignation would be accepted & I think it will be as soon as tendered. Two months longer is all they can hold me & I convinced the general that it would be better to partially break in new officers before the opening of the campaign than to change in the midst of one. If things all go off as I expect, I shall probably come to St. Joe but will not promise for certain as something may turn up. Capt. Dunn expects to get out at the same time & if he does, we intend to take a steamer all the way from Louisville to Quincy and live on the fat of the land.
Love to all. Kiss all the babies and don’t fret when you don’t get letters. Lovingly yours, — D. C. Newton
¹ These unusual Rebel earthworks may have been “Shoupades” named after Francis A. Shoup, and 1855 graduate of the US Military Academy who conceived the design and constructed a large network of them along “Johnston’s River Line” of the Chattahoochee river.
Letter 4
East Point, Georgia
September 16, 1864
Dear Mary,
We have just returned from a 2 days forage trip into Rebeldom & a hard trip too—a part of our promised rest. We started just at dark of the 13th and rode in mule wagons until nearly midnight when we halted and bivouacked for the balance of the night on the banks of the Chattahoochee. Tired, I just spread my rubber on the ground, my woolen on top, and soon I was in the arms of Morpheus. We were called out at 4 to go on and as soon as it was light enough to see, we went on our winding way. When I awoke & put my hand on my blanket it was so damp I could nearly wring water from it on account of the heavy dew. We went some 9 miles & then into the field (of an old Rebel) of some 150 acres of good corn for this country & could hardly get 70 wagon loads of ears with the husks on. I wonder what Elisha [Foote] would think of that for a Nebraska yield. It looks funny to us northern chaps to see the way they cultivate corn down here, just one stalk in a hill and one ear on a stalk. What would an Illinois farmer say to that? I guess he would think it a waste of land and labor.
I am getting mad. I am trying to write this with steel pens and have already tried 3 and condemned them all & here goes another.
My desk has come from Chattanooga and all the rest of my traps also. I have my tent nearly rigged with board sides & floor just about as we used to have it at Corinth. I have made this P. M. a fine bunk & have it filled with pine boughs and thick. I can take a nights rest tonight if nothing occurs. I am at work & will soon have my papers in good condition once more & ready for my exit at any time. I would send in my resignation at once if I only had money enough to get home on, although it would take 3 months for me to get my pay. I would rather wait than to stay 2 months longer. But I could not get home if I had my resignation accepted as I have not a dollar of money nor have I had for a month & am only living on the charities of the people and the balance of my mess who have an account at the commissary & get all out eatables charged. I must owe the mess $25 or $30 and perhaps more—the first I ever owed any mess since I have been in service. I owe at least $50 in the regiment more than I ever have been in debt before since we have been out. And the deuce of it is I can’t get out & leave all these things unpaid & won’t if I have to serve my full term of 60 days. I don’t believe they can kill me in 60 days when they have been trying 3 years & could not. I don’t know but that you had better go home when you get ready at the same time write as I told you in one of my last letters for fear I may come around that way and not find you at home. The deuce of the matter is we don’t hear anything yet of our paymaster although we are promised one very soon.
September 17th. A deuced cold morning. I can hardly write, my hands are so blue. If you write me at Louisville, direct to care of Louisville Hotel & I will not have to go to Post Office. I have my tent up a good floor in it & a good bunk, all the necessaries of life. I slept last night in it for the 1st time & the 1st time in 142 days that I have slept under any other roof than a rubber blanket & I caught cold. I am really of the opinion that an outdoor life is full the healthiest but still shall try an indoor life as soon as possible now just for a change. The boys are gathered around the fires this morning & if it is as cold in the North in proportion, I’ll bet you are hugging the fires this morn. I think it must be as all our breezes come from the north & northwest & feel as if they had ice in them.
Charlie Hill has been made adjutant. His commission came yesterday and he is as large as life and twice as natural. Col. Bowen has had a commission as Colonel come but he refuses to muster for 3 years & is going out. He is very ambitious & wants a brigadier’s commission & will go out of the service if he can’t get it. Bully for him. Newton wouldn’t accept that. There is considerable feeling getting up in the regiment about new officers as the time approaches for our terms to expire. Captains Bailey, Barto, Young, Compton, & McGrath all want the Lieut. Col’s berth. Young and McGrath would take the Major’s berth & perhaps Compton would. Lieut’s Perry and Davis both want it also. Perry would take Regimental Quartermaster if he could get it. Watson, Wolcott, and Rice all want the officers of the company & Kessler would stay, I am satisfied, if he could be made captain but God forbid. Gen. [John M.] Corse is very anxious the old officers should stay and accompany him through the winter campaign but not any for me, if you please.
Love to all. Kiss all the babies for me & be patient. I will be along soon now. Lovingly yours, — D. C. Newton
Letter 5
East Point, Georgia
September 23, 1864
Dear Mary,
Your letters have grown to be strangers of late but still I keep writing to you as I have leisure time ad can find nothing else to do. Playing cards has become an old story and has no more charms. Chess has gone out of date and checkers is too tame. We have orders to drill 1 hour in the forenoon in company drill, 1 in the afternoon in battalion drill with brigade drill every Tuesday and division drill every Thursday afternoon. Officers’ school from 2 to 3 every day and each captain has orders to have a school for his non-commissioned officers at least 4 days in a week. Besides this, there is a regimental school for non-commissioned officers from half past 10 to half past 11 each day. Bully for Gen. [John M.] Corse but we old vets have been in the service long enough to know how to shirk & a very small spatter of rain puts off a drill, being very busy in making our returns, just at the right time puts off a school, and an “I declare, I forgot about it,” get a fellow excused from being at a regimental school. So you see we do not work ourselves to death to say the least of it. He is worse on schools, drills, &c. than ever Sweeny was for he issues orders & then is around often to see whether they are carried out, Sweeny used to issue orders and never know or care whether they were carried out or not.
I just got 16 new wedge tents for my company and the boys are at work putting them up and are making a fine looking street of it. The tents are arranged 8 on a side with shade 6 feet wide in front tastily decorated with pine boughs and an very fine accommodations now I assure you beside what the boys have been having for the past 6 months. Time goes very slow now. I almost wish another campaign would open as it makes time fly so much faster than camp life. The 2 months I shall be obliged to stay if I cannot get my resignation accepted seem very long to look ahead to but I supposed they will be gone almost before I know it.
Over three weeks have already elapsed since the evacuation of Atlanta and it does not seem like one. That eventful night will be long remembered by me as I was up all night advancing the skirmish line & fought quite a little battle with 3 or 400 men under my command, drove the rebels half a mile and got the whole camp in my rear aroused and in line of battle. I tramped back and forth all night long in the line and at 2 A. M. just gt laid down for a little rest when the Rebel magazines &c. at Atlanta commenced exploding and for an hour made the welkin ring with their echoes. At the distance we were—22 miles—it sounded like artillery parked and having a tremendous battle. It put me in mind of what the Battle of Gettysburg must have been. We all though the remainder of the Rebel army which had been left at Atlanta had come out and attacked Schofield and that he had parked his artillery and gone in. we crowed a little because we thought he was giving them all more than they could stand as the fire seemed to keep up. But we awaked the next morning to hear the glorious news, “Atlanta evacuated,” and Sherman’s glorious words, “Boys, your work is done and well done & now you shall have rest.”
The weather for 2 or 3 day has been gloomy and rainy making us keep close in our tents. It has rained until the ground is soft and last night in a heavy rain my shade fell down flat and I have got to have another bee to get it put up again. The news is scarce. I believe I wrote you that Charlie Hill was adjutant of the regiment. The shoulder straps look well upon Charlie’s shoulders and he is going to make the best adjutant we have had in the regiment since its formation. I tried hard to get the position for Wolcott but failed. I have one consolation if I don’t get my resignation accepted, I will soon get 8 months pay. The Paymaster being here & that will be over $1,000. Quite a lift for a young man just commencing life. I shall send home $800 & keep $200 & I have already sent home $100 county order which I have got to pay for. It will use it up. I don’t expect to get any more pay before my term of service expires & I shall be obliged to keep enough to get home on.
I wrote you in my last my sentiments about keeping house this fall & if the friends who occupy our house suit you & will give us the front chamber or the parlor just as you may select and don’t charge us over $8 per week, you can contract with them for an abiding place and I will “ratify the contract.” You can write me as soon as you get home or as soon as you find out after you get them.
Jase [Jason Prindle] and the boys all well. I am well—only “Mad.” I have not yet been to Atlanta but will go down as soon as paid and then will write you my impressions of the town. I will write one more letter to you at St. Joe & then at Batavia as I think you will be there by that time.
Love to all. Kiss the babies for me. Lovingly yours, — D. C. Newton
Letter 6
Rome, Georgia
September 27, 1864
Dear Mary,
I address you from the classic city founded upon 7 hills, old in history & ever famous as the residence of the Pope (I expect to be Pope of Rome soon now.) Here all things are changed, however. This is the city of hospitals—every other house is a hospital & vast numbers of tents are up & used for the same purpose. Well of course you want to know how I came in the city of hospitals. Well I came in the cars. I don’t suppose that will satisfy you.
I also came by the way of Atlanta—that far famed town in which I had intended to spend a day or so looking around at the sights but in which I only had an hour; enough though to see that nearly every house had had an unwelcome visitor & some a dozen. Large blocks of buildings were burned down & others were so badly used that it would have taken nearly as much to repair them as to build them anew. The city is about twice as large as Aurora [IL] & has been a very fine town. Now all the out buildings & all the residences in the suburbs are torn down to make quarters for soldiers. The inhabitants are thronging [to] the depots waiting to be carried north. All that wanted to go south have gone. There is the place to see misery and want although Gen. Sherman is doing for them what can be done. He was obliged to send them away to get rid of feeding them.
Marietta is another fine town but full of hospitals. There are a great many inhabitants there now. The streets are wide and the houses nearly all built of brick giving it quite a citified look. Old Kennesaw looked familiar as we passed it just in the shade of the evening & I could but think of the pop—pop—pop of the skirmisher’s rifle and the boom, boom of the cannon. The picture looked natural without it all was so still and sombre. What a change in the almost three months since we left the old mount. Now all is peaceful around it. No more the frowning cannon & bristling bayonet are to be seen on her heights.
Rome is a fine city one third to one half larger than Aurora, I should think, from what I saw of it as I passed through the streets. The streets are very fine, being very wide with a row of shade trees in the center and gas lights not in operation now, I suppose, from the dilapidated looks of them.
We left East Point at 9 yesterday morning and arrived here at 8 A. M. today—a journey it took us over 3 months to accomplish going down & which we would have accomplished in 6 hours if we had not lain on a side track at Acworth all night nearly. Our whole division is now here and Gen. Corse is ordered to take command of all the troops & the district. We came without tents or equipage but the general impression is that we are to stay here for a time anyway. We were sent here to intercept Forrest, so it is said, but I know nothing of it—only by rumor. Our 3rd Brigade has been here ever since we got to Kingston on our way down & a soft thing they have had while we have been tramping this rebellious state of Georgia all over. I think I wrote you that our old name has been taken from us and that we were now the 4th Division, 15th Army Corps. The old 2nd Division is defunct—gone up. The old name we were so proud of & which we have clung to ever since the army was organized. We almost felt like crying. I had my resignation all ready to put in again but the Colonel says there is an order at Dept. Headquarters issued by Gen. Grant saying that we may be mustered out 3 years from original muster & if that is so, I shall not try again but stay as that insures the mileage & being free from draft until all “the rest of the country” is exhausted of men. It is only 53 days from today and I could not get out any less than 20 days if I should try. Staying 30 days longer, I will get nearly $8 a day, counting mileage &c. besides having the satisfaction of knowing that I served my time out.
Love to all. I shall write my next letter to you at Batavia & be at home about 1st December.
Letter 7
[Note: The following letter is housed in the Batavia Historical Society.]
Rome, Georgia
September 30, 1864
Dear Mary,
It is now 4 days since we left East Point & I had not heard from you in 6 days then & have not yet. Your letters must have run off the track somewhere on the road. The only letter from any of the friends has been one from Father under date of the 5th. Your last one came very quick. It was dated the 13th, I believe. We are camped just outside the town on the north side on a kind of a flat ridge & as it has been raining all the time since we came here. The mud is about knee deep. We have not the fine camping place we left at East Point. That was one of the finest ones I ever saw in my life—high and rolling—and we had just got it fixed up when orders came to move. It is reported that Gen. Hood has a large portion of his army in this side of the Chattahoochee and is going to try and bust Sherman’s communications in the same manner as he did Hood’s, but I guess they will find the old fellow wide awake & won’t have as easy a job of it as Sherman did.
This morning the sun shines the 1st time in 3 days and we begin to have hopes of not drowning. The rain has been very pleasant inasmuch as we had no tents nor any covering except such as we could rig up out of rubber blankets, and when it rained we obliged to go in & lay down or stay out and get wet just as we saw fit.
I have not heard from you or Father since I wrote about the battle and don’t know but that you are fretting about us yet. But as I have wrote several times, I suppose not. 49 days from today is all Uncle Sam can exact from me at the longest & unless they will consent to muster me out then, I shake again try to resign. The way they have been doing is to keep a fellow until he has served 3 years & then make him resign & I don’t propose to do it if I can help it. I shall wait now until I get my pay anyhow & then if they won’t talk muster out, I shall talk resign.
The town is not as large as I at first suppose it was, never having had over 3,000 inhabitants, so the citizens say. It had a great many stores for a town of that size. There must have been as many as 40 & 4 or 5 large hotels, 1 rolling mill, & 2 foundries, 1 wagon shop, &c. Such a town North would have had 20,000 inhabitants & I don’t see how they carried all this & had only 3,000 but here in the South things don’t seem to go on the same way as at the North. I suppose ere this reaches you that you will be at Batavia & I wish I could be there too. I am sick & heartily tired of this kind of life & want a rest. These 2 or 3 days have been very tedious ones and very uncomfortable ones. If we was in the field, we should expect it & it would be all right, but here in garrison, camping out in an open field with rain and mud, it is a little too much.
Our payrolls are in the hands of Paymasters & we are expecting pay every day now. Gen. Corse telegraphed this morn to Atlanta to see if we could not be paid right off. I am very anxious to get a little change in my pocket once more just to see how it would feel If I can’t get home, I shall send 7 or 800 dollars soon if the Paymaster ever gets around.
Love to all. Kiss May for me. Give my respects to the Colonel and all friends. Lovingly, — D. C. Newton
Letter 8
[Note: The following letter is housed in the Batavia City Library Archives, Batavia, Illinois]
Rome, Georgia
October 2nd 1864
Dear Mary,
“The sun is down, the day gone by. The stars are twinkling in the sky,” saith the poet but this dark, rainy Sabbath evening, I can’t appreciate it, “I can’t.” I begin to think Rome is not an “Eternal City” but a confounded wet, muddy, uncomfortable, inhospitable town way down in “Gorgy.” We got here last Tuesday and from that time until the present it has done nothing but drizzle, rain, pour, sprinkle, & come down by hogsheads full at a gulp, until we are wet all over, mud to our knees, and look like these funny kind of chickens whose feathers stick the wrong way.
Last evening we got our baggage and early this morning I got my tent and soon got it up and now I laugh at the rain and storms. “Let it rain, who cares.” I’ll tell you who cares, the poor sentinel walking his lonely beat in front of some general’s headquarters while he sits carelessly within smoking his cigar congratulating himself that he is so fortunate as to have a position where he can make others uncomfortable just for “discipline,”—the poor sentinel out on an outpost, a picket guard to warn of danger who is obliged to be on the alert that others may sleep,—-the soldier bivouacked in the open field with no tent to cover him, no bed to lie upon, no one to speak kind words to him. These are those that care. Think of this ye blessed ones who live in “houses” and bless the Lord that your lot is cast in pleasant places. I believe I never appreciated my tent more than now in all my life. Four days of constant rain & mud with no covering but my rubber blanket spread over my bed has convinced me that even a tent is a blessing of no mean proportions. I believe I felt worse these four days over the way I was living than over the whole campaign as then I had something to occupy my mind—the whistling bullet or screaming shell took away the tediousness of the time and gave us food for thought, but being in garrison & sitting in the rain for 4 days & 5 nights was a little too much for even Yankee Patience and I am afraid we have fretted a few & said some naughty things. The General is giving us plenty of lumber allowing the boys to tear down large houses for that purpose. They have torn down some as good as the one Father lives in & a good many not as good and the sound of the hammer is heard in camp from early morn until late at night. All sorts of mansions are going up, some neatly clapboarded, some not so fortunate in getting clapboards are making theirs of roof boards, full of shingle boards & nail holes. Others have got part clapboards, part roof boards, part something else. One fellow has got his part of someone’s fence & the balance an old sign board & the letters go every which way making it a house of many colors like Jacob’s coat.
I have my tent boarded up same as we used to have it at Corinth & a piazza out front 6 feet wide with a fly over it. Quite comfortable, I assure you. 48 days now is all the venerable “Uncle Sam” calculates to hold the subscriber to the task of defending his country and then without fail he intends to go north and try and defend the interests of himself and small family. The time to me is moving very slow as I have literally nothing to do, no money, no books, no papers (haven’t seen but one in a week)—nothing but army rations to eat & no one to sleep with since Joe [Kessler] & I had a falling out a few days since. The lazy cuss wouldn’t help fix up quarters & so I wouldn’t agree to let him occupy mine & am going to give him a wedge tent for his quarters. He is now commanding Co. “C,” all their officers being either sick or on detached service. I am going to have an election for officers in my company the 10th of this month unless something turns up so they can get their commissions ready to muster by the time my term is out and I am also anxious to know who they will choose as their future commander. I am inclined to think Wolcott & Watson will be the men with Watson for Capt. and Wolcott for 1st Lieut. That is the way I hope it will be anyway.
The road is torn up and I have not had a letter from you later than the 12th & from Father later than the 5th. I suppose you have written or I would blow you “sky high.”
9 P. M. Still the rain comes patter, patter on my roof. Still all so damp cold wet & muddy. I am getting tired and sick of it & am going to take a bath & go to my lonely couch and rest, wrap me in my blanket & lie in a board thankful that I have a cover over my head. There is a report this evening that the Rebels captured & burned a train of cars near Kennesaw yesterday & fears are entertained that they captured the battery belonging to our brigade as it was expected on that train. I enclose for you Gen. Sherman’s letter to the Mayor of Atlanta. I presume you have seen it but I want it preserved. His correspondences with Hood has been published but I have not seen it yet. With prayers for your good health &c. I bid you good night. Kiss May for me & believe me yours affectionately, — D. C. Newton
Cpt. Don Carlos Newton, 52nd Illinois 