War Stories for my Grandchildren

by John Watson Foster

"Let us not forget to thank our dear Heavenly Father for all His mercies of the past year. Oh, how good He has been to us, even with all our troubles! How little we have done in our lives to repay that goodness! May He make us more worthy of His mercies and blessing in the New Year, and may He preserve our lives that we may together meet and praise Him. To His watchful care I commit my dear wife and little ones.

"I last wrote you from New Market. I was enjoying a quiet rainy Sunday there, reading some good book I found at the house where I was quartered, when about noon I received orders for my division to move forward and attack the enemy and drive him back from Mossy Creek. It was an unwelcome order that rainy Sabbath, but we executed it, and after considerable skirmishing took up a new line two miles beyond Mossy Creek. Yesterday Colonel Wolford's division and mine were ordered out at three o'clock in the morning to Dandridge, where it was reported a division of rebel cavalry was encamped. We went, but found the enemy had left the night before, and we returned at 4 P.M. just in time to miss a nice little fight at Mossy Creek. The enemy attacked our outposts at 11 A.M. and drove our troops back two miles, but ours in turn drove them back again beyond our lines. It is not often that my men have the fortune, or misfortune, to miss the fighting, as we did yesterday.

"We have here our entire force of cavalry, and one brigade of infantry. The rest of the army is at Strawberry Plains and Blain's Cross-Roads. Longstreet is reported at Morristown with the main body of his army. I suppose General Foster intends to drive him away from there, if possible, how soon I don't care because I want to come home as soon as the fighting here is over, and take a little rest with my dear wife and darling little girls."

I may venture, before closing my East Tennessee correspondence, to give in part the last of these letters, as a specimen of letters to a soldier's child, written on January 1, 1864:—

"Why should I not write a letter this New Year's Day to my dear little Alice? I am so far away I can't give you any nice present; all I can do is to try to write you a good letter....

"What have you and Lillie and the other little children been doing to-day? And did you have a Christmas tree and a happy time then? Papa has not had much of a New Year's Day. It has been so cold, oh so very cold to-day. Was it cold at home? I could tell you a story about the cold. Would you like papa to tell you a little story in his letter? Do you still like to hear stories? Well, I can tell you part of it, and mamma can tell it over to you and fill it up.

"Papa, you know, is away off, out in the mountains, so far away from home, in the army, and you know there are so many poor soldiers in the army. Yesterday, the last day of the old year, was such a gloomy day, it was so muddy and wet and rainy. And then last night it blew so hard and rained so much; it was like a hurricane (get mamma to tell you what that is). And the poor soldiers have no houses to live in, like little Alice, with nice warm beds, and they don't have large tents like you saw out in the woods near home last summer when Uncle Jimmy and the rest of the boys and men were out soldiering. They have to live in the fields and woods, and their tents are like grandma's tablecloth, only smaller, and they stretch that up over a pole and it is open at both ends, and at night two or three or four of them get down on their hands and knees and crawl into it and pull their blankets over them when they go to bed. The soldiers call them 'dog-tents.' Ask Lillie if she thinks it would be good enough for her 'Trip.' Well, last night, after many of the soldiers had been marching in the rain, and when most of them were wet and their blankets wet, they built large fires, but they wouldn't burn well because it was too wet, and they crawled into the 'dog-tents,' and were trying to get to sleep when the naughty wind commenced to blow and it began again to rain, and the rain would blow on their heads and they would draw them further into their tents, and then it would rain on their feet, and pretty soon there came up such a hurricane that it blew all their tents clear off of them, and there they were lying on the muddy ground, and the cold rain pouring down on them. And they all had to get up out of bed. It had rained so hard that it put all their fires nearly out so they couldn't get warm. Poor soldiers, don't you pity them?

"Some of the soldiers were out, away off in the dark woods on that terrible night on picket (get Willie or Uncle Aleck to tell you what that is). And they had to sit all night on their poor horses away out by themselves with their guns in their hands and swords by their sides, watching to keep the wicked rebels from slipping into camp in the dark night and killing your poor papa and the rest of the soldiers. After a while the rain stopped, but the wind kept blowing and whistling through the trees and over the mountains and making such a terrible noise. You can hear it whistle around the corner of grandmamma's house, but it moans and whistles so much louder out here over the mountains, it might frighten little girls if they did not know what it was. Soon the wind began to change around toward the north where Jack Frost lives and from where the white snow comes, and the rain began to freeze, and the ground got hard, and it was so cold, oh bitter cold. The poor soldiers could sleep no more that night, their blankets were all frozen stiff as an icicle, and they had to build great big fires to keep their coats and pants from freezing on them. It was all they could do to keep from freezing; they could not keep warm.

"Some of the men, when we went out to drive away the rebels from the other side of the mountain, were hungry and they stopped behind us at a farmhouse to get something to eat, and the wicked rebels caught them and took their overcoats away from them, and took their warm boots off their feet; and some of the poor fellows got away from them and walked all the way from the rebel camp over the frozen ground barefooted. To-day the soldiers have done nothing but build big fires and stand close up to them and try to keep warm.

"These poor soldiers and your papa have come away from our homes and left good mammas and dear little daughters to keep the wicked bad rebels from making this country a poor, unhappy one, and that when little Alice and the dear children of the other soldiers grow up they will have a good and a happy country, and won't have to know about wars and such terrible things. You must remember about the poor soldiers, and pray God that He will be very kind to them and make the time soon come when they and your papa can all of them go home to their dear little daughters and good mammas.