Scottsboro, Ala., March 12, 1864.<\/p>\n
I have been tremendously demoralized for nearly a month in consequence of a terrible cold I caught by some of my carelessness, I suppose, but am now coming out of it all right. Weather is most beautiful. Not too much duty, excellent camp, remarkably good health, and everything so near right, that almost think a soldier who’d grumble here deserves shooting. Were I disposed to complain am sure I could only find two little topics whereof to speak; one being the fact that ’tis impossible to get anything to eat here excepting regular army rations, not even hams can be had, and the other the long-continued absence of the paymaster. We are hoping that both these matters will be remedied ‘ere long, but have been so hoping for months. We have a division purveyor now, who pretends that he will furnish us in good eatables. We have had but a few articles from him, and I’ll tell you the prices of those I remember. Can of strawberries, $1.75; cheese, 80 cents a pound; bottle (about one and one-half pints) pickled beets, $1.50. If I could draw the pay of a brigadier general, and then live on half rations, think I might come out even with said purveyor for my caterer.<\/p>\n
Everything perfectly stagnant. We did hear day before yesterday some quite rapid artillery firing for an hour or two; it sounded as though it might have been some ten or twelve miles southwest of us. ‘Twas reported by scouts a few days ago that the enemy was preparing flatboats at Guntersville to cross the river on, with intent to make a raid up in this direction or toward Huntsville. The 15th Michigan Mounted Infantry was sent down to look after the matter, ran into an ambuscade and lost a dozen or so killed and wounded. That’s all I heard of the matter. We were very sorry that the loss was so light, for they are a miserable set. We are going to have a dance here in a few days. Think I’ll go. Anything at all to get out of camp. I’m as restless as a tree top after marching so much. You don’t know how tame this camp business is. Am afraid I will get the “blues” yet. Hurry up the spring campaign, I say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scottsboro, Ala., March 12, 1864. I have been tremendously demoralized for nearly a month in consequence of a terrible cold I caught by some of my carelessness, I suppose, but am now coming out of it all right. Weather is most beautiful. Not too much duty, excellent camp, remarkably good health, and everything so near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":95053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-army-life-of-an-illinois-soldier-charles-wright-wills"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Charles-Wright-Wills.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}