Item No. 3570633

The Battle of Chickamauga had perhaps been more of a defeat for Union General William Rosecrans himself than it had been for his Army of the Cumberland. The beaten and demoralized general had retreated to Chattanooga, where he allowed his army to be bottled up and put to siege by Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Union reinforcements, however, were on the way from multiple points, including from the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. That army’s 11th and 12th Corps, placed together under the command of General Joseph Hooker, had been ordered to Rosecrans’s relief, and had begun a long round-about journey by rail to Nashville, and then southeast toward Chattanooga.

Among the 12th Corps men was First Lieutenant Willam E. Perkins and his comrades in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. The son of a Boston merchant, Perkins was a Harvard graduate who counted Henry L. Abbott (20th Mass.) and Robert Gould Shaw (54th Mass.) among his friends and associates. Perkins had enlisted in the 44th Massachusetts in 1862, and in January 1863 was discharged to accept a commission in the 2nd Massachusetts, filling a vacant lieutenancy. In this letter, written October 6, 1863, from near Estill Springs, Tennessee, Perkins discusses his long journey, the situation of the armies, and his curiosity over a regiment of black soldiers.

“Since I wrote the last of this letter we have been continually moving,” he opens, recounting how they had come via Stevenson, Alabama, and Decherd, Tennessee:

There we laid out a regular camp with company streets, distances, &c., all correct. We had, however, hardly had time to wash up & get ourselves decent again, when our regiment received orders to pack up & get on the cars again. I was just eating my dinner & was disgusted enough at having to learn it, but we made an advantageous change. This new camp is a very pretty place, and we are likely to be stationed here for some time. We are guarding the railroad in company with the 13th New Jersey, 102d Ohio, __ Michigan Engineers, __ Kentucky Battery, & 1st Tennessee (colored) infantry. We are eight miles from Tullahoma and seventy-nine from Nashville.

Here the regiment was placed on picket duty. Perkins then remarks about the positions of Rosecrans and Bragg:

There is some apprehension of any attack on Rosecrans’s communications, as it would be useless to attack him in front. There his position is secure. People down here don’t seem willing to admit that he has suffered a defeat. They can’t see the difference between a victory & a decisive victory. Undoubtedly Bragg was victorious, but his victory was not decisive because he didn’t drive Rosecrans out of Chattanooga.

“There do not seem to be any other troops here except the 11th & 12th Corps & Rosecrans’s army,” he adds. “No reinforcements have arrived from Grant, and I have not heard of Burnside’s junction.” He continues:

I believe that this place will be our winter quarters. Out in this part of the world the guards on the railroad don’t have any fighting to do. When the army moves, they stay where they are. So I am preparing my mind for a wall tent with a floor & a fireplace… There is not much to eat here, except sutler’s canned stuff, and that you know always has a taste unlike what comes from home. I am not very likely to get what I want here, but I can life very comfortably with occasional help from home.

Perkins then gives his impressions about the black troops of the 1st Tennessee:

As I said before, we have a n___r regiment here which has just been raised. Their camp is next to ours, and this morning I went over to see guard mounting. They are very green, officers & men. The officers are all white of course. Our men don’t show the slightest ill will, but seem very much amused at their new neighbors. If we had a joint picket, and our privates were put under n___r sergeants, it might make trouble, but I don’t believe they will try anything of that sort. Black & white troops have no natural enmity, if they are kept separate.

He adds that “the officers of all the regiments round us are very friendly in offering everything that they have, & that we are without. I believe there is some hospitality in Western men.”

Perkins closes the letter abruptly, signing only his initials, “for we have just had orders to get ready to move. Probably it is to change camp.” A postscript, however, implies that a telegraph message for the “commander of the 12th Corps” had been misinterpreted by Major James Francis, and no move was made.

Any hopes for winter quarters would be dashed with Grant’s arrival two weeks later. The men would again be on the move, and victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge awaited the following month.

The letter was written on 6 pages of letter sheets measuring about 5” x 7 1/2”. One of the sheets features an engraving of the Battle of Shiloh. Excellent condition with light toning. Creased at the original folds. The full transcript appears below.

In camp 4 miles north

of Decherd, Tenn. Oct. 6th, 1863

Since I wrote the last of this letter we have been continually moving. On the night of the 3d we reached Stevenson, Alabama, and camped there till the next morning. Then orders came for the 1st Division to go to Decherd, & the 2d to Wartrace. We started back & reached Decherd again on the afternoon of the 4th. There we laid out a regular camp with company streets, distances, &c., all correct. We had, however, hardly had time to wash up & get ourselves decent again, when our regiment received orders to pack up & get on the cars again. I was just eating my dinner & was disgusted enough at having to learn it, but we made an advantageous change. This new camp is a very pretty place, and we are likely to be stationed here for some time. We are guarding the railroad in company with the 13th New Jersey, 102d Ohio, __ Michigan Engineers, __ Kentucky Battery, & 1st Tennessee (colored) infantry. We are eight miles from Tullahoma and seventy-nine from Nashville. (I have just discovered the name of the place. It is Estill Springs.)

The only duty here is picket duty. We picket the road to Winchester. There is some apprehension of any attack on Rosecrans’s communications, as it would be useless to attack him in front. There his position is secure. People down here don’t seem willing to admit that he has suffered a defeat. They can’t see the difference between a victory & a decisive victory. Undoubtedly Bragg was victorious, but his victory was not decisive because he didn’t drive Rosecrans out of Chattanooga.

There do not seem to be any other troops here except the 11th & 12th Corps & Rosecrans’s army. No reinforcements have arrived from Grant, and I have not heard of Burnside’s junction.

I believe that this place will be our winter quarters. Out in this part of the world the guards on the railroad don’t have any fighting to do. When the army moves, they stay where they are. So I am preparing my mind for a wall tent with a floor & a fireplace.

I believe in the first part of my letter I spoke of sending some things by Grafton, instead of by express. Perhaps it would be as well, with such a bulky thing as a buffalo robe, but anything good that you send I should like to have now, without waiting for Grafton.

There is not much to eat here, except sutler’s canned stuff, and that you know always has a taste unlike what comes from home. I am not very likely to get what I want here, but I can life very comfortably with occasional help from home.

As I said before, we have a n___r regiment here which has just been raised. Their camp is next to ours, and this morning I went over to see guard mounting. They are very green, officers & men. The officers are all white of course. Our men don’t show the slightest ill will, but seem very much amused at their new neighbors. If we had a joint picket, and our privates were put under n___r sergeants, it might make trouble, but I don’t believe they will try anything of that sort. Black & white troops have no natural enmity, if they are kept separate.

The officers of all the regiments round us are very friendly in offering everything that they have, & that we are without. I believe there is some hospitality in Western men.

Notwithstanding we are so far south, the weather has been very cold, especially at night. It is now about ten o’clock in the forenoon, and I have to sit by a fire to keep warm, though the sun is out & is quite hot, the winds are cold, & at night we have heavy frosts.

I must close here abruptly, for we have just had orders to get ready to move. Probably it is to change camp. I will add a postscript to inform you. Love to all.
Very afly yrs
W. E. P.

P.S. Half an hour later—We are still here, and apparently unlikely to move for some time yet. It seems that an order came by telegraph, I believe addressed “to the commander of the 12th Corps,” and Major Francis in the absence…