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Dear Parents:
Your letter of the 7th of March I received the 18th of March
and see in it that you are all still well, as I, thank God, have also been so
far.
We have lain, up to this time, at our old camping place.
Only the 103 Illinois and the 50th Indiana regiments which belonged to our
brigade have marched off to guard the railroad which runs from Memphis to
Corinth.
Here in Jackson all has been quiet up to now. Only in the
early part of March there was an uproar here when the news came that the rebel
General Van Doren was marching against Jackson, but General Loller got in his
way. He had 1000 cavalry and 2000 infantry and 10 cannon. The rebels
however did not wish to engage in battle but instead withdrew again. As a
result no battle came of it and General Loller came back to Jackson again.
The bushwackers give rise to most of the mischief here.
They attacked a railroad train the fourteenth of March at Humbolt but they
accomplished nothing by it and the train got into Jackson in good shape.
As we wanted to give up the road from Jackson to Columbus they
have taken all the troops away. At Humbolt we still have quite a lot of
wood which is to be used in railroad building. On the 17th of March a
railroad train was sent from Jackson. It lay 30 miles north of Jackson.
One hundred men of our regiment had to act as guards for the train. Ten
men of our company had to go along so I had the good fortune to make the trip to
Humbolt. We rode away from Jackson at 8 o’clock on the morning of the 17th
and arrived at Humbolt at 9:30 where everything was quiet and there were no
bushwackers to be seen. We took about 50 Negroes along from Jackson who
had to load the train. The train was loaded with wood and came back to
Jackson in the evening at about 7:30 without having fired a shot.
There is nothing much new. Everything is getting nice and
green. The plums and other fruit trees are already beginning to bloom.
They have planted their gardens here. One farmer said that here they would
have had their field work done long ago if it had not been so wet. The sun
shines down pretty hot here already. The weather is now nice.
Now I must close and let me greet you all many more times.
Greet Henry Kregel for me. I wrote him a letter on the 18th of January and
have not received an answer yet. Perhaps the letter never arrived.
Greet all again many times.
Still something which I must not forget. Our company is
now in the best of health and our company appears hale and hearty. The
28th of February George
Beck, he had worked for old Hei Kreuger, William Kreuger’s father-in-law
died in Memphis; and also the fat Muller,
who formerly lived on the Neith farm, died here in Jackson. Otherwise, all
are hale and hearty.
Charles Hennrich
NOTES:
George Beck was from Garnavillo, Iowa. He was born in
Germany and was 23 years old at the time of his enlistment in 1862.
According to the official record he died the 8th of February 1863 in a military
hospital at Memphis, Tennessee and was buried in the Mississippi National
Cemetery, section 1, grave 113.
Hei Kreuger was the father of William Kreuger. William
Kreuger’s father-in-law was named Heit. Heit and Hei Kreuger were
neighbors and George Beck had worked for Heit at the same time that Charles
Hennrich had worked for Hei Kreuger. The Muller mentioned was Theodore
Muller, age 38, officially reported to have died in the hospital at Jackson,
Tennessee, on March 13, 1863.
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