Camp Two Miles In Rear of Vicksburg
May 28th, 1863

Dear Wife (to Charlotte),

I again write to you amid Roar of Cannon. I am not any better in health but I hope this will find you and the little ones well.

This is the tenth day before Vicksburg. They may hold out a week longer but we will capture all of them for our lines are strong and they cannot get out and the provisions must be getting very low.

I bought a box of tobacco and got a teamster to haul it through for me and I have made just forty dollars on it by selling it out by the plug, the soldiers will pay most any price for tobacco when they are out. I have been buying and selling as the opportunity offered and I have just seventy dollars in money now and have twenty two dollars lent out to some of the boys which I will get next pay day.

There is a Mr. Dorland of Ashland County here at this time, he will start home in two weeks and I will send you sixty five dollars by him and he will leave it in the bank at Wooster for you. It will be published in the paper I think, and then you can tell when to go after it.

Let me know in your next letter if you received that $20 I sent you by Mr. Kaufman or not. I received a letter today from Mr. Jim Rodgers who appeared to be considerable interested in my affairs which I have answered in a manly way.

We have captured up to this time eighty pieces of Field Artillery and about twelve thousand stand of small arms and have taken upward of eleven thousand Prisoners.

The Rebel loss in the different battles we have had lately is about twelve thousand in killed and wounded and our loss I don't think is quite so much say ten thousand.

Oh the Horrors of this blood was to see the dead and dying - to see wounded after laying one day and night on the field with a wound in the arm or leg which if cared for sooner would of saved their lives, but after laying in the hot sun become all blowed with maggots rolling all over the wound since many such sights are to be seen. Oh how many poor boys have lost a leg or an arm and many more their lives. If God spares me to get home, I shall try to live to his Honor & Glory and lead a consistent life.

Just let one go into our Hospitals to see the dismembered limbs and hear the groans and see the tears of suffering roll down the pale cheeks of our heroic boys who are suffering all this for our country. I have become so immune to it that it does not effect me like it did at first.

Give my love to all the friends and may our Father in Heaven preserve us all to meet again is my prayer. A kiss to Lottie, Johny and Clary, Good by, write soon, I have had no letter from you for five weeks, my undying love to you dear wife.

William McCormick