Alabama, camp near Tuscumbia, July 5, 1862

The places we have marched through before, we have always seen the Union flag and white handkerchiefs waving by every home. That we do not see here in Tennessee and Alabama. Here it is sour looks that greet us as we march through, although we put a guard over every place so their property shall not be destroyed by our soldiers, but still they do all the mean things they can to us. The soldiers would rather burn their property than watch over it.

A person’s life is in danger here when a short distance away from the camp, many have been shot at.

Last evening our whole brigade was in town to listen to our Generals and others make speeches to the people of the community and to us. We marched in with seventeen large flags. The speakers invited the people there back to the North, if they wanted to go.

The speeches were—“We have until now marched through your lands as friends, not as enemies, all your property has been safe. We have been as brothers and sisters to you, but you have done in return just the opposite.”

They were told that this kind of treatment would come to an end and if they kept their kind of treatment up toward us, then orders will be given the Northern soldiers to burn their fields and murder the whites, let the black ones loose, and declare us as enemies wherever we go forward. It sounded good to our ears.

The farmers here, in hiding, have shot many Northern soldiers.

At present we cannot complain about hard times, we drill one hour a day, the weather is comfortable, not too hot, the nights are still cold enough to sleep under a blanket, and we have exceptionally good water from a spring.

A couple of days ago O.P. Renne and I were to town. We bought four pounds of butter at twenty-five cents a pound. I had intended to buy a light-weight trouser, but one that cost one dollar and fifty cents in St. Peter cost three to four dollars here. Plain shirts cost from two to four dollars here.

The apples are too green to eat yet