Love letter - March [15], 1863

Shelbyville, Tenn

Jas. M. & T.A. Loves:

Dear parents:
I had a letter from you some time since and answered it. I also recd a letter from Terrissa and one from Robt a week or so back and wrote in answer soon after receiving them but could not get Envelopes and so did not send them until this morning one of the company went to town and I sent them to be mailed -- This leaves me in tolerable good health. I have a bad cold however which I attribute to having slept in a house for two nights in succession : the other boys from Limestone are in about the same condition as myself except Dick Oliver who seems to be somewhat worse than any of the rest of us. Terry Wilie is in good health

Vandorn is here with his cavalry from Mississippi but I do not know whether Phifers Brigade is with him or not and consequently can tell you nothing more about the boys than you may at the present time know -- Solomon Scruggs told me that he learned they were well from a man he saw from Vandorns army but I do not believe the fellow knewwhether Phifers Brigade was there or not -- I have not been able to ascertain who were killed and wounded in the fight Vandorn had at Thompsons Station [March 5, 1863] a short time back on the Alabama and Nashville railroad in which he lost about thirty or forty killed and somewhat more than one hundred wounded -- they killed about one Hundred Yankees and wounded four or five hundred wounded and captured twenty two or three Hundred -- Thompsons Station is not far from Franklin on the road to Columbia We have been picketing until the last two or three days on the pike leading from Murfresboro to Winchester but we are now on the pike leading from Shelbyville to Nashville by Eaglesville and Triunewe are about ten miles in a North Westerly direction from Shelbyville but letters sent to Shelbyville will reach us. I have not been able to hear from Middleton whether cousin John Webb was taken by the Yankees the last time they were there or not

The yankees gave some of our pickets a considerable chase about a week ago and caught some of them -- since Wharton's Brigade came over here they have had out two scouts one on yesturday went to Eaglesville where the yankees in pretty large force had been camped only a few hours before they followed them toward Murfresboro and captured some straglers who told our boys that it was the intention of the Yankee commanders to begin an attack on Shelbyville yesturday but it was not done for if so we would have heard artillery as we are in eight or nine miles of the Shelbyville and the Murfresboro pike and only ten from Shelbyville -- the Yankee army is no doubt concentrated at Murfresboro with the intention of making a move in some direction but none of us know which way

I have ceased to make any calculations as to when the war will end and I be permitted to come home again -- I am satisfied from what I can learn of the Yankee army that they are as tired of the war as we are and if peace is once made it will be a long time before either side can be induced to fight each other again -- this generation at least will have to die out first -- you have no doubt heard or rather read from the papers that there is a considerable degree of discontent in the northern statesor rather the United States -- I cannot tell from what I have seen what it will lead to -- Rosencrantz has ordered that the citizens about Murfres shall not raise crops this year and to prevent it has destroyed their farming utensils about Murefresboro the fences are nearly all burned and also a good many houses -- he has taken all the forage and provisions from the citizens and the richest men at Murfresboro are now under the necessity of going to the Yankee Comissaries for their daily provisions.

Do not look for me until you see and know I am at the house

Yours in fillial regard & etc.
C W Love

Love Family Correspondence. Special Collections, Burnett Library, Texas Christian University. Fort Worth, TX. (TCU Box 298400)