April 15, 1863

April 15, 1863

Letter from Chauncey Herbert Cooke, April 15, 1863
Dear Father: -- Yours of April 9th came in due time. I am so glad all are well and that you are so cheerful and hopeful that the war will soon end.

You must be very brave to undertake so much work as you have planned, this spring. I have just received a letter from cousin Ben Gardner, whose regiment is camped just back of Memphis, Tennessee. You know he is in the cavalry. He says he is orderly and having a good time. Plenty of rations, no bullets to face and regular pay. He says, "I hope to meet you my son and talk over family matters and get a good look at you." I'll bet he is a lively fellow and loves a good time. He writes about the war as if it was a picnic. I enclose his last letter. He has no fear of rebel bullets, you can see that.

We moved our camp yesterday over near the brow of the overhanging bluff. The view is much finer especially of the Mississippi. Say father do you know I never look at the river but I think of home. I go down to the shore nearly every day to wash my feet. When I dip my hand in the water I think that it comes from Wisconsin and I wonder what part of it came from Beef River. It is terribly black and muddy, made so by the water of the Missouri that flows into it above St. Louis. From our new camp we can see the daily mail boat, 12 or 15 miles away that brings us good and bad news from home and from Washington.

Last night I lay awake for hours listening to the honk honk of the wild geese passing over our camp toward the north. Does the dam which we repaired, the beaver dam east, still hold? If it does you must have plenty of shooting at ducks and geese this spring. Don't think me homesick father, when I tell you I turned over many times in my bunk last night thinking of the stories you told me of the early French traders who broke the great beaver dams to get the beavers and so destroyed the nesting places of the wild ducks and geese that made their homes in our valley and on the neighboring creeks before the coming of the whites. That novel called "The Prairie Flower" still sticks in my craw. I never read any book that so haunted me, sleeping or awake. I remember that you told me that it was poison to read such stuff, but I don't believe it has hurt me. The people in "The Prairie Flower" were not in fear of any law but they did right in the midst of the Sioux Indians and the lonesome hills and wild animals about them. I remember you said Prairie Flower was a fictitious character, an unreal character, and that women were not as good on the average as she was painted. Well father, I thought you might be wrong then but now I have come to think that you were right. Getting back to ducks and geese and the beavers, how I wish I might be with you this spring. What lots of fun you are having. All this passed through my mind last night as I lay in my tent with the lappel thrown back so I could see the north star and the dipper. Both of them are nearer the horizon than in Wisconsin. But they brought to me in their
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silence and sameness something of the nearness of home.

The deep dark forests on the Missouri side reaching back for miles are slowly turning to green. Spring is here and no mistake. The freshness of the grass and leaves, the golden sunshine and carol of birds in every tree, give no hint of this human war. One thing I most forgot. I expressed $20 with Capt. Darwin to Durand. You may have to go to his home for it. His family lives about three miles from Durand. I have an overcoat I wish was home. I will give it away to the first darkey that looks like Uncle Tom. I know there are some grey backs in it. I would rather put the grey backs on some darkey than on mother, for I know she dreads such things.

I send you today a couple of southern papers. One, The War Eagle, printed at this place, the other a Vicksburg sheet full of brag and bluster about fooling the Yankees. They are a fair specimen of southern newspapers. Are there any copperheads up there? It makes the boys mad to read of copperheads at home. They are more dangerous than rebels at the front because the south is made to believe they have lots of friends in the north. They had better lay low if we ever get home. They will find its no joke to the south.

How I should like to have a brotherly tussel with brother K. and I think of the boys so often. Well, we will have a good time when the war is over.

How does Henry Amidon prosper? Confound him he has forgotten old times I guess. I have written him but he don't answer. I asked him in my letter if he remembered the time his father caught us down by the swiming pool laying in the hot sand stark naked and covering ourselves with the sand. I never was more ashamed in my life than when his father hollared and yelled to see us and we rolled into the creek to hide. Henry didnt mind it as much as I did. O, but those were happy days and we didn't know it.

Father good bye till next week.

Your son,

CHAUNCEY.