The Civil War Letters of J. W. Rabb

Georgia, Near Dallas, May 31st/64

Mrs. Mary Rabb

Dear Ma Ma,
It has been a long time since I have gotten a letter from you or Virge eather. You don¹t think, shorly, that I have departed this life? If you have been harboring such an idea, let these lines assure you that I am still on this side of Jorden. Our hole army is in a line of battle rite here, and here we have been for the last week, & right here we will whip the Yanks if they will only come up & pitch in. But that, they do not sem in a hurry to do. We have had skirmishing in front of our lines ever day for the last five days, and once or twist the Yankeys under took to storm our works for which they got severly punished. There has nothing of a fight come off yet, but we are in expectation of it ever day. The Yankeys are sayed to have one hundred & twenty thousand men, but they have a long line of rail road to gard, which will weeken there army considerably. We have, it is sayed, eighty thousand infantry besides a vast deal of cav. If this fight comes off, a good part of our cav will go in to the fight on foot, as it is a poore place for cav to opperate as the woods are so thik & green. When the fight comes off I dont have aney doubts but that we will whip them. I beleave that we will whip them when we fight them. I think that the news from Richmond is encourging, although Lee has been forsed to fall back some. Gen. Lee has brestworks along his line of battle, and if the Yankeys drive him from them they have to do so by (brutal) supeority in numbers. And then they loose three men to our one, & then our men only fall back to stronger works than they have left. So you see that this brutal superioty can't last. The news on the west side of the Miss is good, but not as good as we first hird. Croft & my selfe are well, any more than I have a very severe boil on my left thighe which makes it very difficult for me to walk. Is Virge all right? I am anxious to here from him. Give my Res to Unkle Andrew & Aunt Peggy & to Col. Moore & Mrs. Moore. Rite me all the news.

Res,
John W. Rabb

Tell Lissy & Mr. Rees that I can't right to them now. However, you can send them this letter.

Rabb, J. W., "We are Stern and Resolved: The Civil War Letters of John Wesley Rabb", ed. by Thomas W. Cutrer, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 1987, pp. 185-226.

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