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Mobile Register

Mobile Register

June 30, 1863

Page 4

 

Letter from the Independent Rifles

Camp Mobile, Lynchburg, June 24, 1861

Dear Sir:--In compliance with your request I hasten to inform you of our safe arrival here.  At every station along the route we were greeted by ladies, and had we time to pick up all the bouquets thrown at us by them, we would by this time have several carloads full.  Poetry was just as abundant as flowers and should we ever be spared to return to Mobile, we will have them published.

Real patriotism we only found in Alabama and Virginia.  In Corinth, Miss., they not only charged us double rates for everything we bought—(one man paid fifty cents for a cup of coffee and another five cents for a cork for his canteen)—but even went so far as to refuse us good water, which we nevertheless got, notwithstanding the curses of the proprietor of the well for every drop spilled in filling up our canteens.

On our arrival in Huntsville we found a splendid breakfast prepared for us by the citizens, to which full justice was done, for there is nothing like a soldier’s stomach—it is a genuine India rubber manufacture, but none of Goodyear’s patent.  In Chattanooga we were informed that before reaching Knoxville, a company on the way to Virginia was fired into by some Unionists near the railroad bridge (Greenville); and as that company had no arms nor ammunition, they could do nothing but go on.  On hearing this we were all provided with cartridges, and we held ourselves ready at the first sign to bring the train to a halt and storm the town, but the enemies were wise enough not to show themselves to us.  On reaching Bristol, which town is half on the Tennessee side and the other half on the Virginia side, we received the first hospitalities of the Old Dominion.

Here it is with regret that I have to mention a sad accident which happened to our 3d Corporal, G. Bloch.  One of the members of our company dropped a pistol through carelessness, the load went off, and one ball lodged in the right leg of Mr. Bloch.  The best physicians of the town attended to the case, and in a few days we will have him in our ranks again.

The reception we had at Liberty, Va., twenty-eight miles from Lynchburg, was not unlike that in Huntsville, Ala., and there we met, among other companies, the Independent Light Infantry, from Bibb county, Ala., which now is encamped near to us, a whole regiment from Arkansas, and a company from St. Louis, Missouri.

We are encamped here on the same ground that the Cadets occupied when here, and the ladies of the neighborhood call on us every day, send us vegetables, and are trying every means to comfort the soldiers.

We will have to await the arrival of four more companies from Alabama, when another Regiment will be formed, which undoubtedly will be sent o Manassas Gap.

Please send us some papers, and oblige,

Yours,              A. P.

Independent Rifles, of Mobile

 

[Transcribed by Sharon Strout]

 

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