Letter written by JAMES TAYLOR BOOTH, CSA

Co. F, John Bell Hood’s 5^th Texas

To his mother, MRS. ELIZABETH COTTON

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Richmond, Virginia

July 22, 1863

 

Dear Mother,

 

As I have an opportunity of sending a letter to you that I am pretty certain you will receive as it comes by hand, I take pleasure in sitting down to the table to write it. I am now staying at the Texas Hospital where I expect to remain a month yet before I will be able to join my Regiment. I receive a wound through the fleshy part of my thigh on the second of this month at the Battle of Getteys burg in Pennsylvania but it is nothing serious. I am able with the use of one crutch to walk about very well but it keeps me out of service a month or six weeks or longer yet. The Texas Hospital is got up purposely for the Texans in Virginia. It is kept very nice and clean and we have excellent Doctors and nurses and it almost seems like home to us Texans when we get sick or wounded. We lost more than two—thirds of our regiment in the battle and what was worse still very near all of our wounded fell into the hands of the Yankees. There was one killed and twelve wounded in my company and there was only myself and another, a little Frenchman, but what fell into the hands of the enemy. Our army had a splendid time over in Yankeedom. We just took what we needed from the people in the way of staples. But we did not treat them half as bad as they deserve to be treated or we would have burnt their houses over their heads. That is the way they treat the people here in Virginia and I think we ought to treat them equally as bad. Gettysburg was one of the hardest fought battles of the war. We gained decisively the advantage there although it was a drawn fight. General Lee has recrossed the Potomac and is in Virginia again. I am very sorry that Vicksburg has fallen but we must expect reverses sometime.

 

Well, Mother, I have to close this letter abruptly as the man who is going to take it is ready to start.  Give my love to Josephine, Lou, Mary Cora and Ade and my respect  to Mr. Cotton and Alph.

 

Write often, dear Mother, to your affectionate son.

 

J.T. Booth