My Dear Daughter Kathryn,

 

I trust that the New Year finds you well and in good spirits.

 

Nothing slows the advances and aggression of an Army as much as Mother Nature. I write this whilst much of the continent east of the Mississippi battles with the extreme conditions of cold, wind and snow brought upon us in her fury. The weather is so cold that icicles have become adornments for beards and mustaches. It may indeed be her displeasure with the war that causes her to intervene with hopes that better minds will find a peaceful end to this scourge upon our people.

 

I have been in correspondence with cousins Fred and Benny. Fred serves as Captain with the 26th Virginia having been promoted from Lieutenant during their stay near Charleston. Unfortunately he is yet to secure a mount, which bothers him terribly, especially since he has had the privilege of duty on the brigade commander’s staff. For a short while he had a borrowed horse but the owner has asked for its return. Fred told me “If I cannot get a horse, I cannot return in my present position as the other officers have horses and in the case of another expedition I would have to walk which would be very humiliating for an officer”. On the contrary, I prefer an officer on foot, as his pace and direction is much more in step with the enlisted men. A mounted officer tends to “explore” the battlefield in a more zig-zag pattern, causing the colors to stray from a direct approach, overlapping Companys upon each other.

 

Cousin Benny, now seventeen, will soon be subject to conscription, and it seems that he is determined, despite his parents objections, to join John Singelton Mosby’s battalion of scouts and guerillas. He wrote in his letter late in December “Where will I be this time next year? If I live I will certainly be in the army, I am resolved to go with Mosby in the summer”. At present he is “training” with the Virginia Home Guard. The Grey Ghost will be getting a good man.

 

Their father, Doctor Fleet, has noted that the war appears to be “a punishment for natural, sins”, that the clouds seem more dark, lowering and portentous than they have ever before appeared, and that the public tolerance for the hardships of war is wearing thin. However, he retains the spirit of fighting it out “as long as we can raise 50,000 old men in the Confederacy”. Angered over the defeat of Bragg’s army in Tennessee he takes great pleasure that Bragg has resigned and that Joe Johnson has taken command of the Army of Tennessee.  

 

At their home in Green Mount many cattle have died of disease this winter, ten horses have been taken by marauding Yankees and the gloom of diminished crops and a looming economic crisis have cast a pall over the entire family. A victory in the field will most certainly change attitudes.

 

For the 44th  Georgia, this past twelve months we can rightly claim a banner year. The thunderclap of success in May at Chancellorsville bore distinct marks of the 44th Georgia on it, followed by our impressive advance less than two months later on the first day at Gettysburg.

 

It seems ages since I’ve stared down the barrel of my rifle at a Union soldier, and I am sure that all of the 44th are as anxious as I to take our position in support of our Glorious Cause.

 

May this be the year when our independence shall be wrought out and peace established if it be God’s holy will”.

 

Stay well and warm,

 

Your Father,

Corporal James Marshall

44th Georgia VI, Company C.

In Winter Quarters