Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi
November 21st, 1863
My Dear Sister:
It is now two or three days since I received your last letter written at home and mailed from Batavia. That makes the third or fourth letter I have received from you since I left home. I am thankful to hear from you at all and therefore do not complain. The home news generally gave me great pleasure, particularly that relating to father's gradual recovery. Ever since you wrote of his failing health, his extreme sickness, and the despair of the doctor to save him, I have been quite wretched in feeling. Your news has almost wholly relieved my mind.
Of course my letter informing you of my own misfortunes has been received. I am not well yet, but I am constantly on duty and this may be one reason why I do not recover more rapidly. I am slightly disappointed about our crops at home, but I rather think that it is more probable that we have been as well favored as our neighbors. Most of our crops are good and we should be very thankful that the Good Spirit has been so kind to us.
I met with quite an accident today. I lent my horse to an officer to go across the river a few miles, and in coming home, as he was crossing the bridge, the horse jumped into the river and was drowned. This makes for me an investment of $150 in this miserable country.
You may like particularly to know just where I am and just what kind of country it is, and the character of the people who occupy it. Well, if you will look upon a map of the U.S., up in the northwest corner of the state of Georgia, you will see a town marked Chattanooga. It is not in Georgia, but in Tennessee, three miles from the state line and only a few miles from the northeast corner of the state of Alabama. The range of the Cumberland Mountains passes through here. It is nothing more than a continuation of the Allegheny range of mountains and of course very much like them. Father and old Sam both know a great deal about these mountains. The Tennessee River passes through this range of mountains at this point. And here we are among these mountains and our army lies on both sides of the river, which has in some places a flat upon one or both sides. The rebel army are south, east and west of us. In fact they almost surround us. If you understand topography, I would make you a topographical map of this particular section and let you study it. However, I will give you a little idea of my present home.
Our troops are in Chattanooga and the rebels are all around us on the south side from river to river. Commencing at Lookout Mountain, their lines extend around until they strike the river again away above, not so far however, but that our pickets can talk with the rebel pickets. It is very hilly of course, like all mountainous country, and the summits of the mountains are almost inaccessible. The rebels have a great many troops, estimated at 60,000. They fire at us every day with cannon from the top of Lookout Mountain which hangs over our city one-half mile above the plain we occupy. Our guns are on Moccasin Point, about 1200 feet below the big guns on Lookout Mountain, and yet our guns reach them at that high elevation. No day passes that the cannons are not engaged.
Since we came here there has been one little battle fought, in which 500 or 600 men may have been killed. In two or three days a great battle will probably be fought if the enemy does not run away from us. It would have been fought today but we could not get ready. I have had so much to do that I had almost forgotten to write to you. I have known for some days that a great battle was pending, but as I have to do all the writing, I was given no time to think of anything else but my work. And now that the fight has been postponed for a day at least, I concluded to write you. When the great battle is over I will write you again.
The battle will be fought on our side by about 60,000 troops and we suppose the rebels number nearly the same. We intend to thrash them soundly and give the rebellion such a blow as to stagger its longer continuance in this region. General Grant feels confident of success, and so do we all. Many lives will be lost but no one who goes into battle ever thinks that he is the one to be victimized. General Bragg has a great habit of running away when he thinks the enemy opposed to him is his superior in strength. We are afraid that he will do this now and that we shall have had our trouble for nothing, for really our preparations have been on a grand scale. It is no part of our program to relinquish one foot of the ground that we now hold and occupy, and if the rebels propose to drive us back, they must fight most desperately to do it.
The country people of the entire south, so far as I have seen, do not live as well or as comfortable as the Tonawanda Indians. They may, before the war broke out, have had plenty to eat and have been well clothed. But today many of them have nothing but corn, and now and then, meat and seldom potatoes. Wheat bread is almost unknown among them. Our troops are obliged to feed a great many of the whites who have not left their homes and joined the seceders.
The Negroes, once slave of course, are all with us, and are our servants for pay. The country houses are built of logs, generally round logs and chinked up, but very often entirely open, that is without chinks. Any Indian house is better, more comfortable and cleaner. Their clothes are home made, and of a color they call butternut. The men wear butternut pants or coats, and the women, coarse homespun drapes, very much like our old fashioned flannel, usually called domestic flannel. They do not wear hoops, because such articles to be had, must come from the north.
I am now writing only of the whites who have not left their homes upon the approach of our army. Most of the houses throughout the country are deserted or abandoned. Oh Carrie! This is the most desolate country, and no human being can realize or comprehend the dreadful devastation and horrors created by war, until they have been in its track. From Louisville, Kentucky, south for about 100 miles, the original appearances of the country is pretty well preserved. The people occupy their houses, and are apparently quietly pursuing agricultural employments. Their fences are good and you can see fine crops growing, and cattle, horses, hogs and sheep grazing in the pastures. You then begin to come into a desolated, devastated and burnt district, and the further south you go, the more like a desert it looks. You see lone chimneys standing where once may have been a fine mansion - there are no longer any fences around their once highly cultivated fields. Rank weeds now grow all over the land. Probably there is not now one acre cultivated, where before the war, there were 100 acres.
Every village or collection of houses we come to are deserted. Nobody but Negroes lives in them. The windows are all out, and the fine mahogany and rosewood furniture now forms the ornaments of Negro cabins. The fine drapes that white ladies once bedecked themselves with, with hang shabbily upon the ungainly figure of some huge, dilapidated Negro wench.
We occupy Chattanooga, and we have no southern whites among us, except the poor, "White trash", and they are so poor that they can hardly speak the English language. Oh! It is really a pitiful sight to see these people suffering to the extent that by-and-by we are going to withdraw our troops from the country and relinquish the country and consent to a separation of the American Union makes them endure all this suffering and humiliation. Sometimes our troops come upon these people so suddenly, that they have only time to escape with what they can carry on their backs, leaving their comfortable houses for our poor soldiers to luxuriate in.
We are now having Indian summer weather. It is very delightful and pleasant. In a few days will commence our winter weather, which last until about January, and in March and April we having rainy spells. We are here in the ancient homes of the Cherokee, and our present quarters are only about 12 miles from John Ross' old home. By-and- by as I see more of the South, I will give another history of it. My letter has reached its 7th page, I do not think you will find time to read it, and I will close, hoping that the Great Spirit may protect you all and keep us all safe until by his kind providence we are permitted again to see each other.
From you brother, Ely S. Parker