August 3, 1863

August 3, 1863

Letter from Chauncey Herbert Cooke, August 3, 1863Dear Parents:

The expected move came at last. After four days of steaming and tugging and puffing and groaning, we find ourselves camped near Helena, Arkansas, on the banks of the old Mississippi. For nearly four days the wheels of the brave old boat went round and round stemming the muddy water of the dear old river. We were glad to know that every hour brought us nearer to good drinking water and pure air.

All the 27th and 28th of July the ambulances were busy picking up and carrying the sick to the hospital boats. The bands on the boats kept up their playing so as to give the sick fellows courage. The evening of the 28th our regiment, reduced to 700 men, marched on to an old vessel that had been used as a blockade runner, and as you may suppose it was full of holes bored through and through. Well we had not been on board an hour before the rain and wind began to pour upon us from above and from all sides. It was a regular cloud burst. The fellows on the upper deck were soaked and so were all of us below decks. The water poured through every seam and hole.

We lay at the landing all night. We got under way down stream early in the morning and about ten o'clock our old shaky craft turned its nose up the muddy current of the

Father of Waters. Every fellow that could get a string lowered his coffee can for a drink of water. The boys would smack their lips and say the dirt in it tasted like Wisconsin dirt. Reaching Lake Providence that evening it was decided to transfer three companies to another boat, as our boat was overloaded and threatening to sink. Companies B., C. and F. went ashore to follow on the next boat. We pushed on with a more comfortable feeling. The next day I had a turn of fever as did a hundred others, on account of sleeping in wet clothes. I fixed that after a while with a dose of quinine and brandy, put up for me by the steward. Our vessel was old and rickety and made slow headway.

The faithful old craft panted, toiled and groaned its onward way toward the north star. We laid up alongside the shore two nights. And except to stop now and then for wood, there was no excitement. We stopped one night opposite a big peach orchard. Got peaches and chickens enough to make us nearly all sick and confiscated sixty mules. There are few towns along on either side and the forests come right down to the shore and look as wild and dark as they did when the French Jesuits visited the river two hundred years ago. Helena is not so far up as we had hoped to go. Soon as the remainder of our regiment gets here we expect to be sent to Memphis, Tenn., a hundred miles farther north.

We are camped under some big trees close to the shore, and we like it much better than on the miserable Yazoo. We can buy stuff here for less money than at Vicksburg. I should judge there were 15,000 troops at this place. They expect Gen. Price to attack this place any day. He is a foxy old war dog and may pop up any day. Let him come, he won't catch our commander Gen. Prentiss asleep. They say Prentiss always sleeps with one eye open.

While I am writing William Thomas of Mondovi, is sitting on a bench beside me. The poor fellow is dead home sick. He looks very bad. He watches the steam boats passing up the river and wishes he might get a pass to go home on one of them.

Mensus Bump came round awhile ago and treated us all to a cup of milk punch, that is milk and whisky. All the sick boys got some. It pretty near laid me out as it did a lot of others. It is a cold morning for this country and I dropped my paper and went over by the fire, and the heat made me dizzy. Dan Hadley and Obe Hilliard said it was better than quinine and they just as leave take some every day.

Well father, what do you think of the war anyway? It seems the rebs are trying to make an alliance with France, and make Napoleon Dictator, or something. Anyway to get the French to help. The South ain't licked yet, and we may be in for a lot of trouble yet. We get the daily papers from Memphis, and so keep posted. Have you got a letter advising you of the check I sent you of forty dollars? A load of Butternuts, rebel prisoners, is just passing on the steamer Hope, bound for the north. They will get into some prison, get full rations, get strong and be exchanged for our boys that have been starved and unfit for service.

Father, I often think of the three hundred thousand Catalines, as you called them, that brought on this war just because they could not run this government in the interest of slavery. It is only slave holders that fill the offices in the southern army. It is the poor white trash that even the darkies look down upon that fill the ranks and take the brunt of the fight. Poor devils, they don't know that they are fighting for a rich aristocracy that despises them.

I don't know about your taking that Pierce darkey to work for you. Some of them are the worst liars and thieves in the world. Be careful. [p. 55]We soldiers have lots of dealings with them. They seem nice enough to me and honest, but it is claimed they are awfully dishonest. When they are faced with the facts of their lying they put on the most pitiful look of innocence. I am trying to find excuses for them when I remember what you told me about them. I don't doubt but the whites would be liars and thieves too if they had been slaves for two hundred years. Whatever I think I won't side with the boys that are abusing them. This I do notice, the boys that I think the best and like the best say the least against the blacks.

Hereafter direct to Cairo. Mail will be forwarded from there.

Your son,

CHAUNCEY.