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Regiment: 11th Michigan Infantry
Battles Mentioned:
Historical Figures:
Camp Near Chattanooga
Nov 17th 63
Dear Friend,
Your very kind letter of the eighth came to me tonight and I was much pleased to hear from you and that you were well. I presume there was a great excitement to see who would be drafted and I have no doubt more than one man trembled lest it might be him. I think myself that those who are so anxious to see this war continue would show their zeal to better advantage to come into our thinned ranks and help us fight it out. But they are the last ones to take a gun in defense of those dear liberties they are so lavish in praise of. But will stay at home and form a petticoat guard (oh what have I said. A darn poor one at that). But I presume they are ladies men and could not think of lying out in all kinds of weather with half enough to eat. It might soil their skins and the rebs might honor them with a dose of medicine in the shape of blue pills and they are averse to taking that kind of medicine. Well there is no fighting here yet to amount to anything but it is the general opinion that there must be a hard fight here before many days. It cannot come of too soon for me for I think it will be the last fight I will get into during this enlistment. And if I should have to wear a wooden shirt I might better put it on this fall and save going through the winter than to wait until spring and then go under. But I do not think there is any danger of my being shot. If I can only keep clear of the gallows I shall get home all safe enough at the proper time.
On Friday last there were two men shot at this place for desertion. At twelve o’clock they were led out of prison and put into a wagon drawn by four bay horses. They were seated on their coffins and taken out of town a short distance to a hill. They there got out. The guard lifted the coffins out and they were seated on them. The chaplains then prayed for and with them. They were then told they had but five minutes to live and they could spend it in talking or praying as they saw fit. They each spoke a short time saying it had not been their intention to desert. Their hands and feet were then tied and they were again seated on their coffins. The black caps were drawn over their faced. Eighteen rifles were leveled over their heads and hearts and at the drop of the officer’s sword the two men rolled from their seats and died almost instantly and without a struggle. At first sight it seems a little hard to kill a man for deserting but when you come to look at the consequences of so many deserting it is but right they should suffer death for every man that leaves makes the Army that much weaker and those that stay must fight that much harder to win the same battle. So I say shoot the last man of them and others will not be so ready to desert. They said they did not intent to desert and were gone eighteen months and at first had went to Canada and then returned home. I think if they intended it for a joke they carried the matter too far and at last it run in the ground. One was a man of fifty years old. The other was a young man of perhaps twenty. Both old enough to know the penalty attached to desertion in the Army.
Well Kate I presume that you and Mary do have your sport about me of course but I do not care. I have seen more than one man saddled and bitted by young ladies who were in a worse fix than I am. If he walked with one, another would affect the sulks because he did not walk with her. And at the same time neither of them cared a tinkers copper for him only for a fool, and yet he was dead in love for them and that don’t happen to my fix with any lady. And I would not like to live if no one would talk about me no difference whether it is good or bad. And I have no doubt I would catch it worse if I was there than I now do. I suppose Mrs. Waterson & Mary cares a great deal about whether I enlist again or not. I am of the opinion that Mary will not wait much longer on me as she never did wait on me. And it would not cause her or any one else to lose their supper by the trouble caused by my enlisting.
You think I should come and let some of the rest try it awhile. I shall come home but you will hear men the first questions they ask will be are you going again and the old troops ought to enlist again as they are worth much more than green troops because they know what it is and will fire when raw troops would not and then they will go into a fit about the great honor of defending your country and they are quite willing though that you may have all the honor and bullets too. They would not want to become in any way conspicuous as a brave man but if there is any greenbacks about they are quite willing to hold out their hand to receive them. That is if they do not smell of powder or blood. Oh I like such men (when they are dead).
And now I must soon close as it is getting late and the bugle has sounded lights out. I just wish you and Mary were here & fear there would be no lights put out in my shanty tonight. I have a very comfortable little room made out of rails and mud. It is large enough for four or five being ten feet in the clear each way. But I occupy it along and do as I please. One person in a house enough to make things comfortable then there is none to toss things upside down.
But I don’t think we will get to stay here a great while.
Give my respects to all my friends reserving a good share for yourself.
I still remain your sincere friend,
Thomas W. Smith
