I. D. Affleck Letter to Parents

There is a fellow from this company will start for Texas to day, and I take this opportunity of sending my letter to [i.e., by] him. I received a letter from you yesterday. . . . I am very glad you are sending me a horse and I hope two—I was just on the eave of getting a transfer for want of a horse but now I will change my mind and stay where I am, you thought I would not be allowed a stallion in the ranks, there are about fifty stallions in the regiment and I have herd nothing sayed about them—I am glad to hear that you are making such good crops in Texas this year of every thing—Every thing in the way of crops about here are very poor especaly wheat.

We have a pleasant time in camp now doing nothing—The other night I wint on my first scout, the bugle sounded about twelve o'clock, and we were ordered to saddle up which we did, and rode about twenty miles by day light. I stood picket the next day ten miles from where we camped[;] we had been at the stand half an hour and then called in and ordered to Chattenooga[.] we got here yesterday morning about day light, last night we were ordered to coock one days rashions and be ready to leave at any moment—you sayed something about some money [but] there was none enclosed in your letter that I could see. Gerard is not with us now[;] he got a discharge at Corinth and I have not heard from him since—

I wish you could send me some boots and shoes [because] I cannot get them here at all and I am about out as I only started with two pair shoes. The Yankeys are strung along the other side of the river for twenty miles below here [and] we can see them every day. The other day when they bombarded Chattenooga there was a great many shills thrown over that did not burst—one old fellow picked up one and took it home to examine it[;] he called his wife and three children around him and commenced picking the powder out of it when it exploded killing him and his children and cutting his wifes leg off—My valiece[,] gun case and all my clothing that I left at Rienza has gone up.

When you send me clothes this summer I wish you would make them of [as] light—cloth as you can get and make them of a dark cullor because it will be very hot here this summer. . . .

[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.