June 11, 1863

Letter from Chauncey Herbert Cooke to Doe Cooke, June 11, 1863

Dear Sister:

Am in receipt of your last letter but an hour ago. You do write a good letter. So full of news, just the stuff for a brother in the war to read, and you tell things in such a good way. It's just like a story in a book. You are father's girl all over just as mother has often said. How I wish I could have some of the fish you tell of catching, only I don't like the fellow that took you home that time. He is nice looking and knows how to say pleasant things, but he is what our chaplain calls a roue. Look in the dictionary and see what roue means. I don't want my sister to keep company with a roue, if I understand the word. Let me tell you, my dear girl, most young men ain't as good as they ought to be. And I wish you would be more careful and mind me a little if you are older than I. But I must tell you of things here.

We had a dreadful march from Satartia to reach this place. It was a killing march. Our Division General was a coward, and the march began at sunrise and ended at ten o'clock that night. It was a retreat, a perfect rout. The rebel Johnson was supposed to be close in our rear with a body of cavalry and the orders were to press forward with all possible speed. Through great forests and corn fields without end standing above our heads, in the hottest sun I ever felt, the army became a regular mob, every man for himself. Men threw aside their coats and blankets their testaments and their shirts. Hundreds lay down in the corn rows, under the trees and on the banks of the creeks. Many of them in the faint of a sunstroke, others fanning themselves or cursing those in command. The constant roar of besieging mortar and cannon at Vicksburg grew louder and louder as we advanced. The ambulances and the ammunition and supply wagons that followed were full of men unable to march, long before night. You know that father always said I was mother's boy because I never was tired or never sick till I went into the army. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I had lost sight of every man of Company G, and was marching with a bunch of Indiana boys. I had divided the water with them I had in my canteen. I had thrown away a woollen shirt and torn my blanket in two and left a part of that to lighten my load. My cartridge box was the heaviest thing we had, every man was loaded with all the bullets
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he could carry, for we expected to need them. I was just about fainting with the heat when one of the Indiana boys said, "my boy you better lay down, your face is awful red." We were on the bank of a muddy creek. I walked away from the road up among the trees and after taking a drink from the creek I lay down in the shade of a tree with no one in sight and fell asleep. When I opened my eyes the sun was down and it was just getting dark. For a minute I didn't know where I was nor what had happened. Then the march and the mix-up of the day all came back to me. Here and there I could see through the woods the light of the camp fires. I went back to the road where I left my Indiana friends five hours before. I sat down while a battery of six guns went by, each drawn by six big horses. Then followed a rear guard of five or six hundred cavalry whose sabers and carbines clanged as they rode by. I knew if Johnson was so near, these cannon and cavalry would not be passing toward Vicksburg in this peaceful way. A straggling group of infantry followed the cavalry and I joined them. I had gone but a few steps when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. Turning to see who it was, what was my delight to see the Captain of my company, Captain Darwin, smiling upon me. Like myself he too was lost from the company. The Captain had never looked so good to me. He had laid down by the road like me, overcome by heat, and he was anxious to find the company. Until I found Captain Darwin I was ashamed to think that maybe I was the only one lost from the company. The Captain is a great big strong man and nice looking. And when I found the heat had played him out just as it had me I took courage. After calling at about a hundred camp fires and half as many regiments we found our company and our regiment. If there is a just God he will punish the man that ordered that awful march. It was useless and uncalled for. We hear that the General has been arrested and will be tried by Court Marshal. Every soldier on that horrid march hopes he will be punished.

The air is sickening with the stench of decaying flesh. Mississippi is full of cattle running wild in the cane brakes, and the boys are shooting great, beautiful steers in sight as they would rabbits, leaving every thing but the choicest parts on the ground to smell and stink. Ten miles from here the people in Vicksburg are starving for beef to eat and where we are camped the air is poisoned with the decaying flesh of animals more than we can eat. What a world this is. I am only giving you a brief sketch of the important things. Just think of the horror of 50,000 people with half enough to eat, with no rest nor sleep, stormed at with shot and shell, night and day in the city of Vicksburg. They have dug holes under their houses and in the bluffs and on the river side to get away from the shot and bursting shell of Union guns. They can't get anything more to eat outside the city so they eat horses and mules to keep alive. O, but the poor wretched whites that let the rich slave holders drag them into this war. The negroes tell us the rich white man in the south looks down on the poor white trash who has no slaves, as much as he does on the black man. And the common soldier in the rebel army is awful ignorant. There ain't one in ten that can read or write, and they think the Dutch boys in our army were hired in Germany and came over just to fight them. I have just been notified by the Orderly Sargeant that I am to go on picket duty to-morrow and to put my gun in order. The reports that we get every hour from the pickets that men are being shot reminds us that we are not in sleepy old Columbus, Kentucky any more, where we could go to sleep without danger, except from
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the officer of the guard. I'll let you know in a few days how nice it is to do picket duty in the cane brakes of Mississippi within gun shot of the enemy's line. I haven't the least fear of danger, sister and I am feeling real good after a two days' rest of racket and roar of big guns that put me to sleep nights and waken me in the morning. There is an army of some 15,000 men around us and between here and Vicksburg. Love to all, father, mother and the boys.

P. S. -- There is a rumor at this moment that we are to counter march for Satartia to-morrow. I'll bet it is a false rumor.

Your brother,

CHAUNCEY.