Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1862-04-18
An Eden BOY at Pittsburgh before the Battle.

An Eden Boy at Pittsburgh before the Battle.
PITTsBURG LANDING, Tenn, Mar 81, go.
DEAR FRIENDS AT HoME-I am here in
camp. There are $4,000 men here, and
still more coming every day. / cannot
look either way, without seeing them pass
ing, to the further side of the camp. There
is infantry and cavalry, and any amount
of artillery. There are $4,000 rebels
within 80 or 40 miles, and they have got
a strong fort. Our spies tell us it is built
of cotton, and we are going up to see what
it is made Of and we are going to have
it too, OF big fight, or foot race. If
they run we will follow them within
hairs breadth of HI, but what we will
get the miserable scoundrels.
One of the citizens told me that the
rebels said they expected the id Yam
KEGS were coming, but did not expect all
Gods creation. tell you it made the
citizens stare when we landed; and the
rebels ran like it tells Of in the Bible,
"when no man pursueth ;" but we will
give them shot and shell one of these
days, if they don't put up the old flag of
our country, and come back into the IN
ion. feel just as safe here, as | ever
did at home-right here among the fire
caters. Little did | think when l left
my old home in Eden, that within two
years, should be where shell and grape
shot would rain like as it did at Fort Don
elson; but now | know how they fight a
battle. Two days after the fight l was
out in the country, walking over the big
hills of Tennessee | saw young lady,
and started to 60 to her, but when she
saw Inc she started to run, but I called
out " halt" and she stopped and stood
trembling till l came up to her. ooh
don't shoot me!' she cried in loud
voice and it made me feel bad, to think
she thought would be so cruel as to
shoot young lady. She said the rebels
told her " we would kill her if we could
catch her." and she believed it, and was
sure was going to kill her; but | went
home with her and she gave me as good
dinner as have had for long time.
: We are on the ground where there was a
rebel camp from which our gun boats
shclled them out and killed a great many
of them, and we found them buried-I
said buried-but they were only stuck
into the ground some with their feet,
others with their hands, and even faces
laying in sight; and some laid sinking
on the ground. We saw one grave that
looked like grave, and some of our boys
dug into it and found rebel colonel,
and they dug him up. He was buried in
his uniform. Some of the boys cut the
buttons off his coat. Perhaps you think
| talk as if the dead were of no account
well, dead men have no more effect on me
now than dead mouse. saw piles of
them after the battle and marched over
them. The woods here are full of shell
from two to five miles from the river the
trees are all knocked to pieces by them,
and you can find iron on the ground all
around here in the woods. l will close
by saying we are going to have the larg-
est fight that we have had yet, and if l
die in it mean to die with my face to
the enemy, and | trust that ! shall be re-
membered by my friends in old Eden.
l hope the old flag will never fall. 1t
has to 60 where the Illinois volunteers 60,
and we are going till VIC are stopped and
will fight for the stars and stripes, and
die if they will not let them wave, but
if l live to 60 through the battle, will
write you all about it, and if not, some
one else will write. don't feel at all
afraid when we talk of the fight, we say
we will whip or die. / will close and go
to my bed on the ground. have made
It's biscuits since noon, and done other
work. am some tired, SO good by.
FL. a.s ERAsTUs KINDS,