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Regiment: 2nd Michigan Cavalry
Battles Mentioned:
Historical Figures:
Franklin, Tennessee
August the 29th, 1864
Dear Friend
Your letter of the 18
th of the month came to hand last Friday and I was very much pleased
to get it. I had been off to Nashville on duty for a few days and when I came back to the
company there was quite a number of letters for me among them yours. We have drew
67 horses for company and are getting ready for to go to the front again. I think we
will start this week if nothing happens. So after we leave you ned not expect to get
answers to your letters quite so prompt as when I was at Carters Station, but I will try and
do the best I can and you can expect no more from any buddy. We have drew sabers,
now our arms will consist of Spencer Carbine Shooting 7 times and one Saber to
each man and we will not carry the revolving pistol any longer. Some of the boys do
not like the Sabers very well because they are so heavy. You spoke about putting
the Copperheads into the army instead of drafting old men that had served 3 years.
This is all very well but they make but very poor soldiers in past, we have got two
many of them in the army now. It is the old men that came out first for no bounty
nor nothing else that make the best soldiers and that is the reason that the
government is willing to pay such large bounties to old men who have seen service,
but it is not fair that they should pay such large bounties to volunteers before they
come into the army at all for there is not more than one half of all that enlist that
ever stands it to make a soldier. I say they aught to try them and see if they are good
for anything before they pay them and bounty at all. Some of them and see if they are good
and getting 3 and 400 dollars bounty before they get out of the state and the old men that
came out when the war first broke out and at the time I did are going out now without
getting any bounty but the old 100 dollars and they have stood the brunt of the whole
thing. It is not right. I think they aught to let the draft take them wherever it finds them.
But as long as they are getting them in that way I am glad that our town is not going to
have a draft, as I understand that her quota is full, but there is some in our town that I
would like to see the draft get hold of them and see how they would like it. But to tell the
truth about the thing I do not think that this going to last much longer anyway, but a
good deal is depending on this falls Election about that and I am waiting very patiently to
see how it comes out. There is so many at home that are crying out for peace on any
terms that the South thinks we are as tired of the war as they are and they are thinking
that we will have to back down and let them along and they are living on this hope now
and the way some of our leading men are talking in the North now I do not blame them
for thinking so. I wish that some of thee men ever sent down South to stay with there
Southern friends this winter and see how they like it, but I think there will be some
blood split yet before Richmond is taken for it is a strange place. But then I think it
will be taken some time but it will be cutting off their communications and starving
them out and not by fighting them out of it.
I suppose you have a fine time at the Picnic and wish I could have been there to but then I
would not like to stay there any length of time if the war does not stop, but en I could go
home and stay 30 or 40 days very well. But if I do not get a chance to go home this fall
til my time is out and I do not think I will. As for the remark you make bout some of
your S.S. teachers it is no worse than I have known some of them before I left home nor
as bad. I have seen them go and teach the class on Sunday and after Sunday School go
and play cards and think nothing about it. I would rather see them go to a dance any time
than do this but our Sunday School never amounted to much in our Neighborhood, at
leas I thought so and all on account of the example set by the teacher.
I have nothing more to say at this time, please answer as soon as convenient and
oblige your friend
John Wasson
Company C. 2nd Michigan Cavalry
Franklin, Tennessee August the 29th, 1864
