April 19th, in answer to mine (which I will
mention later) giving him the first definite intelligence about our
regiment and the neighborhood boys. Among other things he said: "We
have had it here that Fry's regiment was all captured that was not
killed; pretty much all given up as lost. That Beauregard had run you
all down a steep place into the Tennessee river, * * * that Captain
Reddish had his arm shot off, that Enoch Wallace was also wounded;"--and
here followed the names of some others who (the same as Reddish and
Wallace) hadn't received even a scratch. My letter to my father,
mentioned above, was dated April 10, and was received by him on the
18th. It was brief, occupying only about four pages of the small,
sleazy note paper that we bought in those days of the sutlers. I don't
remember why I didn't write sooner, but it was probably because no
mail-boat left the landing until about that time. The old mail hack
ordinarily arrived at the Otter Creek post-office from the outside
world an hour or so before sundown, and the evening my letter came, the
little old post-office and general store was crowded with people
intensely anxious to hear from their boys or other relatives in the
61st Illinois. The distribution of letters in that office in those
times was a proceeding of much simplicity. The old clerk who attended
to that would call out in a stentorian tone the name of the addressee
of each letter, who, if present, would respond "Here!" and then the
letter would be given a dexterous flip, and went flying to him across
the room. But on this occasion there were no letters from the regiment,
until just at the last the clerk called my father's name--"J. O.
Stillwell!" and again, still louder, but there was no response.
Whereupon the clerk held the letter at arm's length, and carefully
scrutinized the address. "Well," said he finally, "this is from Jerry
Stillwell's boy, in the 61st, so I reckon he's not killed, anyhow." A
murmur of excitement went through the room at this, and the people
crowded up to get a glimpse of even the handwriting of the address.
"Yes, that's from Jerry's boy, sure," said several. Thereupon William
Noble and Joseph Beeman, who were old friends of father's, begged the
postmaster to "give them the letter, and they would go straight out to
Stillwell's with it, have him read it, and then they would come right
back with the news." Everybody seconded the request, the postmaster
acceded, and handed one