Lincoln Letters

Page 2

when it aint raining it is snowing. I dont think it will cold much longer.

Well, Mike, I have no news that would interest you. I wish that I did have some to write you. We are building batteries and throwing brest works up and cutting down hammock preparing to have a fight. The Jenerals are expecting that we will have a fight soon. They say that Rosancrance is advancin on us. We will have it soon. We have a pretty large force at this place. Our force is estimated at thirty two thousand. Van Dorn had a fight last week with the Yanks and killed 2600 hundred an taking 1,000 prisoners. I cant hear one word from my Brother Ben. Mike, I do feel lost. We are pretty well fixed here. [1] We have tents an little

Footnotes

[1] Nicks’ regiment, the Third Florida Infantry, was one of the six Florida regiments in the Florida brigade of the West, which made up part of the Army of Tennessee under the command of General Braxton Bragg in 1863. After the Battle of Murfreesboro, Bragg established his army in a defensive position in middle Tennessee at Tullahoma, in order to block a Union advance on Chattanooga. From January to July 1863, the Army of Tennessee operated from its base at Tullahoma against Union general William S. Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland. Rosecrans outmaneuvered Bragg and forced the Confederates to leave Tullahoma in retreat to Chattanooga. The “fight last week” was the Confederate victory under General Earl Van Dorn at Thompson’s Station (Spring Hill) near Franklin, Tennessee, on March 4-5, 1863. Francis’ brother Ben (Benjamin R. Nicks) served with Francis in Company C of the Third Florida. Ben was captured in Kentucky at Perryville in October 1862 and exchanged at Vicksburg, Mississippi in January 1863.