“Well, you are now Aunt Missouri. Oh, that I could see my boy! Heaven has protected me thus far and I hope that God will consider me through this dreadful ordeal, and protect me for Christ’s sake; not that there is any merit that I can offer, but I do hope to live that I may be an humble instrument in the hands of my God to lead others to Him. I hold prayer in our company nearly every night when circumstances will permit, and the men don’t go to sleep before we are quiet. Poor fellows, they are ever willing to join me, but often are so wearied I dislike to interrupt them.
“My sister, let our trust be confidently in God. He can save or He can destroy. Let us pray Him for peace. He can give it us; not pray as if we were making an experiment, but pray believing God will answer our prayers, for we have much to pray for.”
My sister subsequently copied into her journal the following extract, taken from his, and written soon after the Battle of New Hope Church:
“May 31st, 1864.—Here we rest by a little murmuring brook, singing along as if the whole world was at peace. I lay down last night and gazed away up in the peaceful heavens. All was quiet and serene up there, and the stars seemed to vie with each other in brightness and were fulfilling their allotted destiny. My comrades all asleep; nothing breaks the silence. I leave earth for a time, and soar upon ‘imagination’s wings’ far away from this war-accursed land to where bright angels sing their everlasting songs of peace and strike their harps along the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, and the swelling music bursts with sweet accord throughout vast Heaven’s eternal space!”
Again on Sabbath, June 5th, he writes: “No music of church bells is heard today summoning God’s people to worship where the gospel is wont to be heard. We are near a large log church called Gilgal. What a different scene is presented to-day from a Sabbath four years ago when the aged minister of God read to a large and attentive congregation: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters.” O, God, wilt thou not interpose Thy strong arm to stop the bloody strife? Wilt Thou not hear the prayers of Thy people who daily say, Lord, give us peace? The Lord will answer, and soon white-robed peace will smile upon our unhappy country. O God, hasten the day, for we are sorely vexed, and thine shall be all the glory.”
Ere peace was to dawn upon his beloved country, his own soul was to find it through the portals of death; but ere that time, save a brief interval of enforced rest, weary marchings and heart-breaking scenes and sorrows were to intervene.
Thomie’s next letter is dated “In the Field, near Lost Mountain, June 14th,” and the next “In the Ditches, June 22nd, 1864.” The next, “Near Chattahoochee River, July 6th, 1864,” tells of the retreat of the army from Kennesaw Mountain to Smyrna Church, and of his coming off safely from another “small fight” the day before, in which several of his comrades were killed.
Owing to nervous prostration, and other illness, Thomie was soon after sent to the hospital at Macon, transferred from there to Augusta, and from the latter point given leave of absence to visit his sister, who had found refuge with her cousin, Mrs. T. J. Hillsman, a daughter of Rev. Wm. H. Stokes of blessed memory. Here, with his father’s kindred, cheered by beautiful hospitality and cousinly affection, our darling brother enjoyed the last sweet rest and quiet earth was e’er to give him before he slept beneath its sod.