April 20, 1864

Letter from Chauncey Herbert Cooke, April 20, 1864
Dear mother: It has been a week, yes and more, since my last letter to you. I had hoped to hear from you and yet I am not surprised that no letter from home has reached me yet. The mails so far south are very irregular. The postoffice people are watching the movements of the rebels and won't send out mail over these southern roads unless they are sure.

I am idle most of the time and I thought it a good time to write my mother even if I don't have much to write. Moresville is a sorry, sleepy little place at the foot of some big hills or mountains, on the bank of a clear, pretty stream something bigger then Elk Creek at Gilmanton. Our duty here is light. The boys call it Soft Snap. That is the name of the camp. It has been soft enough for me. The Orderly has been kind to me. He has not put me on guard or any other duty since my return. He says I must get strong before the big march begins to Chatanooga, where Gen. Sherman is collecting a big army to march into Georgia. Eck Harvey says, "Take it easy boys while you can, for soon we will get plenty of fighting." I am messing with Dan Hadley and Obed Hillard. The boys are real good to me and I am glad to be back with them. I am able to take my regular rations of hard tack and sow belly and feel all right.

April 20th
Our regiment has not yet returned from Decatur, a few miles south of the Tennessee river for which place they left here Saturday evening. Reports say that they had a sharp fight with the rebs and several of the boys in Co. K were wounded. We had been hearing cannons all the forenoon.

I had taken my place in the ranks and expected to march with the boys but the captain ordered me back to camp., saying that I was not fit to go. I hated to go back because I knew some of the boys would say I was "soldiering." "Soldiering," means playing off. There were 18 others of our Co. left beside me and about the same number in each of the ten companies. We were busy on police and guard duty till the regiment got back. I am writing this sitting under a big sycamore tree close to the river. The woods are in full leaf and the mocking birds are singing all round me. It seems strange that human beings should be trying to kill each other when all the world around is at peace.

April 22. For two days and nights I have been on guard without relief. I don't mind it and the boys say I am getting fat. The boys are still at Decatur. Some of the band boys came up from Decatur and report that the rebs are whaling away with their 12 pounder but don't come in reach of musket range. They have a wire stretched from here to Decatur so we keep in touch with the regiment. I don't believe there is much rebel force behind these rebel cannon. They are just trying to hold us here for some purpose, we don't understand.

April 23rd
I have just come from town, 80 rods, with some milk and meal and a mess of doughnuts. An uncommon bill of fare in this south land.

The aristocracy here are getting pretty humble and are glad to exchange milk and corn meal for hard tack, pork and coffee. It has been an awful come down for Maser and Mistus. As Elder Harwood our Chaplin said, they would sow the wind and now they are reaping the whirlwind. The Freedmen fare just as well as the master and mistress. The big white mansion on the plantations of the south has no more in it to eat or wear than the Freedman's cabin. Where I got my milk and meal to-day, I rang several times before the door was opened. A pale
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faced white girl opened the door and when I told her I had been ringing for some time she apologized by saying she supposed it was some of "Aunties" nigger friends come to call on her. "You know" she said we have no future control over our servants. "Auntie" as it seems was away somewhere, calling without fear of mistress. We are glad to get their "Doegods" as the boys call their doughnuts, in exchange for sow belly and hard tack. These whites are afraid of the "Yankees" as they call us soldiers. The boys are always singing John Brown's Body, and they seem to think all we care for is to free the slaves. And to tell the truth, that is about all I care for. But the Union, the Union the Union, as father says, half slave and half free.

I don't believe in hating anybody but the way these old slave holders treat us, they snub us every time we meet them. I don't like them, not a bit.

An important message has come and we are ordered in line by the adjutant. Love to all.

Your Son.

CHAUNCEY.