I. D. Affleck Letter to Parents

Camp near Corinth
April 22nd '62

Dear Mother & Father: Billy Groce is to leave for home this evening on a furlough, and I take this opportunity of sending a letter home by him. He intended leaving two or three days ago but could not get off, so he has the letter which I wrote but did not send off.

We are camped about two miles from town in a beautiful grove of trees, with [vegetation?] all around us—. I found a great many old acquaintenances in the regiment and have been introduced to a great many more, so I have had a very pleasant time so far. New recruits are comeing in every day, but the regiment has not more than seven or eight hundred efective men, and most of them are very poorly mounted—I have no horse as yet, and I dont think I will get one unless I buye one myself or pick up a stray which we have permission to do. I have no six shooter either—a good one is valued at seventy-five dollars[;] some sell them at fifty dollars but I can come across one a little cheaper or take one from a Yankey—Perry had a chill day before yesterday, but I think I have brokain it on him with quinine.

We leave here to morrow morning and go to some place about fifteen miles from here to recruit, and I think we will then go up into Tenn.—the eastern part, and I think I can get a fine horse there from some Union man there—

I think I will hire Perry to drive a wagon from our encampment to another. he will then be no expense to me but will make money. I can get fifteen dollars a month and his rations[;] that is as much as I get—.

I will get my bounty very soon, but I think I will keap it with me. There is no danger of my spending it in camp because there is nothing to buye—I have only spent a dime since I have been here and that was for a news paper—There is a great deal of gambling in camp, and I have seen enough to disgust me with it, and I have sworn never to touch a card again while I live. I know how to play several games, but I have learned them more by seeing others play than practicing my self.

As to whiskey or any other kind of drinks they can not be bought not even for medecine.

The regiment have very poor tents[;] you cant keep dry in them at all[;] most of them have Libby tents but they are made of very poor material. Col. Wharton has sent to Memphis for tents but do not know when we will get them. . . .

[I. D. Affleck]

Affleck, Isaac D., "With Terry's Texas Rangers: The Letters of Dunbar Affleck," ed. by Robert W. Williams and Ralph A. Wooster, Civil War History, Vol. 9, Sept. 1963, pp. 299-319.