The ultimate tyranny is to be visited upon the Confederacy. We are to be slaughtered and dismembered like some hog. I have read a copy of the New York Herald. That gorilla Lincoln has stated that that area of occupied Virginia, which he calls West Virginia, is to be a new state effective in June. This dictator, in his proclaimed efforts to uphold the old Constitution, is ripping Virginia apart and by doing so, is trampling on that same Constitution.
Will East Tennessee and Western North Carolina be combined in a new state? Will Texas be given to New Mexico? The only circumstance that can prevent all this and more is a victory of Southern arms. We need a good stand-up fight, bayonet-to-bayonet, musket-to-musket. Give us Jackson and Lee and turn us loose. We are
Virginia will again be whole.
Adkins is dead. The poor fellow was laid low by pneumonia right in camp soon after coming back from our furlough in Richmond. The very day we returned, he went straight to the hospital tent, complaining of feeling bad. I thought not much of it. I had thought that it was connected to our near-firing on the starving women. I saw him just before he passed on. He said that I could have my old blanket back. He was a good man. Peace to his ashes.
That Mr. Pickle whom we met both going to and coming from Richmond, visited our camp and had a long word with Lieutenant Williamson. We noticed that when he entered the Lieutenant's cabin, he was with four Negroes, each with a sack or parcel. When Mr. Pickle left, Lieutenant Williamson called the company together. With only a slight hint of a speech, he said that the Central Association had sent the items from the folks at home for distribution to their boys with the army..
The items were opened and the contents handed out. There was nothing to eat but that was all right. There were some jackets, drawers, a few scarves, three pair of brogans, and quite a number of shirts and socks. There was one very fine kepi and Hancock got that. He strutted around looking very military. I was lucky to get one blue shirt and one pair of wool socks.
This got me to thinking about those items that I entered the war with. After taking a mental stock of myself, I found that everything I had joined up with at Camp Lightwood Springs had been used up except my very good blanket. All my civilian clothes wore out months ago. Several sets of more military issue have gone as well. A very good frock coat was stripped of its' buttons when its' usefullness had been completed. All my militia accoutrements and even my musket are well nigh gone. I will not lose my blanket again.
It is wrapped around me as I write this. It is our turn again to pull picket duty along the river. The fire in the cabin is warning those inside. I am outside as I feel the need for fresh air. As I sit on a log, I can see the Yankee pickets across the river. I can count their cookfires from the columns of smoke. There does not appear to be any more fires or pickets than were there when I went on furlough. Though we cannot see much, we know the Yankees are up to something.
We are drilling more of late. I will admit that we have become rusty over the winter and Corporal Flynn is doing his best to whip us into shape to whip the Yankees. There has been no official communication that a movement is at hand. Everyone knows that either our army or theirs must move first and the other will follow suit. There will be battle.
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