Colonel Lyon’s Letters.
Claysville, Ala., June 8, 1864.—We got here last night after a rough march, but all well. The country is very pleasant. Only three or four families here. Will give you full particulars in my next. The wagon train is just leaving for Woodville for supplies. We are not settled yet.
The journey was pretty rough. We had to ford one large creek where the water was up to the horses’ sides. We got through without accident. There is but one decent house in the place, and in it lives a widow— an old lady—and two daughters, young women. The Adjutant and I took possession of the surplus rooms in the house for headquarters, and we have made an arrangement by which the family do the cooking and washing. They are poor people, but neat and respectable, a good deal above the average of poor whites down here. I think that they do not chew snuff, although I am not quite sure about the youngest one. All we pay is to furnish provisions for the whole. They seem to be very economical, and I think we shall like the living. They cook well. I have a good airy room up stairs. The old lady has lent me a feather bed. I shall fill my cotton tick with cotton, of which there is plenty here. I brought from Stevenson a nice camp bedstead, and am rigged out very comfortably indeed.
I have four companies, B, G, C and I, on the river, and shall send out three more tomorrow, A, F and D, leaving with me H, E and K. Company C is but a little over a mile from here. They exchange shots occasionally with bushwhackers, but it is too far to do any execution. There seem to be no organized bands of rebels on this side of the river, and no considerable number on the other side.
We get our mail from Woodville, twenty miles distant. It seems odd to go five or six days without hearing a word from the outside world, yet we will get used to it after a little I suppose.
We had green peas and mutton for dinner. The peas we bought, the mutton we confiscated.
There is a better class of people here than there was at Stevenson or Donelson. They are cleaner and more intelligent, and generally not so wretchedly poor.
I have a very trusty, honest horse. I intended to go out with A, P and D, but the roads are so bad I will not go. It is about fifteen miles to the farthest post, and bad roads at that. It is quite a serious thing to haul all of our supplies from there. I am trying to make arrangements to get them by way of the river.
We suspect that old Fever-and-ague lives down here and will be amongst us in August and September. The country is flat, but it is only a few miles to the spurs of the mountains. Brigade headquarters are going to Decatur. It would suit me just as well if they went to the Isthmus of Suez. They do not disturb us.
