Benjamin Franklin Burke to his father - February 7, 1862

Camp Hardee, Ky.
Feb. 7, 1862.

Dear Father:

I will now attempt to write you a few more lines as I have a little lesure time. I have just arrived in camp day before yesterday. I had been staying in a private house in the country as I had got unwell and not fit for camp duty. So I got a leave of absence for two weeks. I was not very sick though I had slight chills & fever before I left camp. I have been bothered with the diereah for some time and have not got entirely well of it yet. Though I feel pretty well at this time.

We are now camped up near the Yankees' camp, that is in about 15 miles of them. We have not had any encounter with them lately in this section. Gen. Yollicoffer met with a defeat at Cumberland Gap in east KY about ten days or two weeks ago in which the Gen. himself was killed besides about 200 of his men. He was mistaken in the number of the enemy and left his fortifications and went out to meet them with about 2500 men thinking the enemy was about the same number, but when he came to attack them he found that he was contending against about 8 thousand men. He fought them bravely until he fell himself. And when his men saw that their brave leader had fallen they were panic stricken and began to fall back to the fortification and finding out that they were about to be cut off from all communication and having no provisions on hand they retreated across the Cumberland river to where their rear was not obstructed. They lost several canon in leaving in a hurry during the night. But after all it is thought that their loss was greater than ours.

We had to send a flag of Truce over to get the body of Gen. Yollicoffer. Several of the Federal officers escorted the dead body down near our camps and nearly all our officers in our reg't & Gen. Hinemon went up and met the federals officers and had a long conversation together. Gen. Yollicoffer's funeral came off in Nashvill on last Sunday.

Our camp is about 8 miles of the Mammoth Cave. I have never been there as yet though I intend to go the first opportunity I have. Our regiment has been getting some valuable articles out of the cave. The man that lived at the cave was a union man and he has deposited all of his house furtniture in the cave and left for Lincolndon, and our reg't and Gen. Hinemon's men got into the secret & have been exploring the cave and finding articles of most all descriptions.

I received two letters from Brother Bill the other day. He staed that he was in very good health but that brother Peter was very sick & that he had sent him home untill he recovered. Please write me how he is getting along and if he has returned to Galveston or not. There is not so much sickness in camps now as heretofore. A good many of this reg't has got discharges. Please let me know if Ike Lane, Rufe Biler or Bill Hale has got home yet or not. Bob Crockett has not got into camps yet. I got a letter from him - he said that he was able to go about but was going to get a discharge & go home. John Justice is out on a sick furlough and has not returned yet. Bill Scallorn is in camps & well.

We have no important news in camps. No late forward movements on either side as I know of. We have had a great deal of rain and we have more mud than any place I ever saw. We have had no very cold weather this winter.

I will close. Give my love to Mother and all the rest of the family. Write soon to your affectionate son.

B. F. Burke

P.S.

Please excuse this blotched letter for I turned over the ink bottle on it.

P.P.S.

Direct as before to Bowling Green, Ky., care of Col. Wm. Terry's Best Texas Rangers.

B. F. B.

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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