"I have no time to write you a letter. I am doing most of the business of the regiment, both of the colonels being sick. All of our brigade left this morning in the forward movement except our regiment, which was left behind for three reasons—the brigade took all our wagons, we had so large a number of sick, and a regiment was to be left to forward supplies. We will leave as soon as we get transportation.
"Aleck [my brother, regimental quartermaster] has been promoted to post quartermaster of General Pope's division, and will be stationed at Otterville, charged with the duty of drawing from St. Louis and forwarding supplies to the division, a very responsible position, and earned by his attention to his duties."
Three days later I wrote:—
"The health of our regiment has been very bad. It is almost unfit for duty. We could only turn out two hundred for company drill, and could hardly march five hundred to-morrow. Diarrhœa, chills and fever, and measles are prevalent. Our officers are almost all laid up. Colonel Morgan has gone to a private house to recruit for a few days. Aleck and I have been the only officers at headquarters who have been entirely fit for duty for several days."
Notwithstanding the condition of the regiment it became necessary for me to run down to St. Louis by rail to bring forward our supply of winter clothing, blankets, etc., and my wife met me there for a day. I am answering her first letter after her return to Evansville, October 23:—
"I am sorry to have you write so despondingly, or rather was sorry to know you felt so lonely (I always want you to write just as you feel). But it was natural that you should feel badly after our separation, for I know what my own feelings were. I trust you are more hopeful and cheerful now. You must remember it is all for the best. I would be with you in our comfortable home, enjoying all the happiness which you and my dear and kind friends could bestow upon me, if I could. But it is impossible. I should be a miserable coward to stay at home in ease and luxury at such a time of national calamity and need."
I wrote again two days later, showing that I had a clear vision of the result of Frémont's grand march to destroy Price:—
"I hardly think we can get off before the first of next week, but it doesn't make much difference to us. We will hardly have a battle at any rate, and will only march down into the lower part of the State to winter, or drag our weary way back again. If this expedition is not a Moscow defeat, I shall be highly gratified. But you must not be alarmed about me. The officer who has a horse to ride and comfortably equipped will be well situated, but it is the poor foot soldier who has to suffer."
I at last chronicle our departure:—
"I have only a moment to write you that we are just about marching to the South. I am very busy, both the colonels and quartermaster being sick. I am colonel, quartermaster, and almost everything else. My health is very good. I see you are secretary of the Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society. You can't do too much for the soldiers, but their greatest need is in the hospitals, good nurses, good cooks, clean shirts, sheets, and kind treatment. If I am to die in the army, I want it to be on the battlefield, never in the miserable hospitals."