Benjamin F. Burke Letter - September 25, 1861

Dear Mother:
I have another chance of dropping you a few lines. I am not at Uncle Daniel Morrison's. I arrived here on Friday last, the 20th. I found the connections all a little on the mend at this time. I have been quite unwell myself for the last week. I got a furlough from our Capt. to stop eight days here to see if I could recruit up some. I found that prarie between Sabine and New Town pretty severe although we made good time in travelling through. We were only eight days making the trip across, the first part of the road was pretty good. We all walked about thirty five miles before we succeeded in getting horses. After we got to Lake Charles, on the Calcasue, The Capt. gave orders for part of the men to take some of the horses that we had along and go out in the prairie in search of horses to ride. So the orders were willingly obeyed and in a few hours a great many of us had horses to ride. I got hold of one at that place that carried me all the way through without falling. There was two or three men that walked all the way through. We picked up horses all the way through, as one would give out we would pick up another and by so doing we had horses for all who wished to ride.

The water was waist deep in a great many places all the way from Lake Charles to New Iberia. It was very fortunate that we got horses or we would have had an awfull time of it, although we had about as bad a time as I ever wish to have again. Two days before we got to New Town we began to get into a better road and was getting along finely, but to change better into worse, it commenced raining about one o'clock in the evening on Tuesday and rained harder than I ever saw it rain before, until about seven in the eavening. The whole prairie was flooded with water but as good luck would have it, we had got over all the streams that would have stoped our progress.

Without going any further I will have to tell you what I had of it during that rain. I was sick that day with the fever and was not able to ride on horseback but had to ride in the wagon. That eavening I sit up there in the wagon with a hot fever and took all that rain until it rained all the fever out of me, and about night seeing the rain had not scaced and the ground covered with water about a foot deep, I thought it would not do very well for a sick person to ly on the ground.

So by the by we passed along pretty close by a house, and I got out of the wagon and made my way for the house and before I got half way to the house (the distance being about 25 steps) I had one of the hardest chills I ever had. The people being French they could not speak a word of English, but them seeing me shaking so they knew what I needed and they pointed me to the fire and gave me warm coffee & tee and treated me very kindly until I left which was next morning.

So I had to take it through the mud and water for about four miles to catch up with the company again. It rain on us pretty much all next day, we made it into New Town about four o'clock that eavening . And a more kind and sociable people we never met in our travels than the people of New Town. There was one lady gave a very fine supper to all our company and then envited us into the parlor to hear the sweet and melodious strains of a lady's voice combined with that of the piano. We were serenaded by the brass band with the tune of Dixie. For all that it was not much funn for most of them because we were wearied out and water soaked through and through & whenever we steped off the sidewalk we were knee deep in mud. I believe New Town is the muddiest place I ever saw.

I came on in advance of my company one day I got on the mail boat about eleven o'clock the same evening we arrived and landed at Berwick's Bay at about eleven the next day and was at Bayou Beouf a few minutes after one o'clock. The T.D. Hine a very fine boat was chartered to transport the troops from New Town to Berwick. So she did not get to New Town until the next day after I left, so our company lay over at New Town until Friday night and arrived at Berwick Bay on Saturday the 21st. I went on the passenger train and met them at Berwick and saw them all get on the express train that came just behind the train that I was on. I got to Bayou Beouf about a minute before they passed and gave them a salute. Capt. Stroble said he expected he would stop one day in New Orleans to dry the baggage as it was almost in a rotting condition. I have not heard from them since they left here, I expect they are in Va. by this time.

I shall leave here on the 28th for Virginia to overtake my company. I met Robert Morrison at Beaumont & he said he was going on to our house. I guess he is there before this, tell him I will write to him before I leave. I will write to some of you again before I leave. Please excuse this last page for I had no lines to go by. So farewell for this time.

Your son,
B. F. Burke

Heard, Jessie Burke, ed. Terry Ranger Writes Home: Letters of Pvt. Benjamin F. Burke Written While in Terry's Texas Rangers 1861-1864. No Place, No Publisher, 1965. (Available in the University of Houston Library.)

 

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