(an excerpt from: Polley, J.B., A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie)

Private Joseph Benjamin Polley was with the Fourth Texas Infantry, created from ten companies raised in central and south Texas. In addition to _A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie, he also wrote Hood's Texas Brigade: Its Marches, Its Battles, Its Achievements.

(from a letter written while Polley and the Fourth Texas were in their winter quarters, near Dumfries, Va., Jan. 3, 1862)

 "All things considered, our winter quarters are quite comfortable. They may lack symmetrical proportions, furniture, and now and then doors and roofs, but we have expended so much muscular energy upon them, and have taxed our combined architectural abilities so enormously, that we are both proud of them and glad to be relieved from further strain of mind. The responsibility for the cabin which shelters my mess was impartially and judiciously distributed among its members. To the Veteran, Mr. William Morris, whose service in the Mexican War entitles him to that distinction, was intrusted the planning and general supervision; to Floyd, Sneed, and Dansby, the cutting and hauling of the timbers and the riving of clapboards for the roof; and to Brahan and your humble servant, the digging of a level foundation on the side of the hill. Then, when the frame was built, the pickets set in place, and the roof finished, there was a reapportionment. The Veteran volunteered to build the stick chimney, and I to make and carry the mud (mortar); Sneed and Floyd took charge of the interior furnishing and decorating, and Brahan and Dansby daubed up the cracks. The product of our joint labors is a most elegant structure; but, unfortunately for the Veteran and Dansby, the former made such a miscalculation of the space required for six men that, to punish him for his carelessness, he and Dansby have, by unanimous vote of the four for whom there is room, been condemned to sleep in a tent. It is hard on Dansby, I admit, but he has no business to have a bedfellow so poor at figures."

"The weather has been terribly cold and rainy for the last three weeks. I have suffered from it perhaps more than anybody else in the company; for, to please Brahan's fastidious taste as to soldierly appearance and to keep even with him, I weakly yielded before we left Richmond, to his suggestion that we buy caps, and then foolishly gave the splendid hat I brought from Texas to a darky. The top of the cap tilts to the front at an angle of forty-five degrees, and thus carries water over a visor just big enough to catch hold of with the thumb and forefinger, down on the point of my nose, and the back of it follows the slope of the occiput, and conveys every drop of rain or flake of snow that falls, down my spinal column. Brahan, orderly sergeant; I, a humble private; he stays in camp, while I stand guard, do fatigue duty, and otherwise expose myself. And thus, you see, although I have kept even with him so far as presenting a soldierly appearance goes, he does not near keep even with me in the way of discomfort."

"If there is anything else that I have a right to complain of in common with every member of the brigade, it is of the vagaries and hallucinations of the brilliantly astute politician now in command of the brigade (Senator Wigfall of Texas). They have been so frequent as to become monotonous. Old Sam Houston must have known whereof he spake when he dubbed him 'Wiggletail'. Whether it be due to constitutional nervousness, or to that produced by the apple-jack and kindred liquid refreshments of which he is said to be so fond, he has kept us for the last month, and particularly since the Christmas holidays began, in a state of almost constant apprehension. He sees a Yankee in every shadow, hears one approaching in every breeze that rustles and clinks together the ice-incrusted boughs of the pine trees under which the cabin selected for brigade headquarters stands, and no sooner sees or hears one than he takes alarm and orders the long roll sounded by the drummer he keeps close at hand for just such emergencies. The roll, I must inform you, is not the spasmodic rat-a-tat you are accustomed to hear when a company of home guards are drilling in the vicinity of your prairie home, but is a continuous, ear-splitting rat-tat-tat. It is only ordered when danger is too imminent to permit a moment's delay, and its effect on sleeping soldiers is always startling, and often ludicrous in the extreme. It means that every man must get to the color line without even an instant's delay, fully prepared to resist and attack. The first time I heard it, it awoke me from the profoundest slumber of my life so suddenly, and scared me so badly, that for two minutes I looked under my bed for my gun and out of door for my pantaloons."

"As the First Texas has its winter quarters within a quarter of a mile of the doughty General and his drummer, it has been more frequently robbed of sleep and inspired to profanity than any other regiment of the brigade. Since the first two or three flurries, Colonels Archer and Hood have wisely waited for verbal orders before arousing their commands. Previous to that, Colonel Archer once led the Fifth Texas half way to Cockpit Point before he learned he was on a wild-goose chase. Thank the Lord, say I, - and I know the whole brigade joins me in the thanksgiving - it is pretty well settled that Wigfall will not long remain in command of us. We are willing to fight the Yankees, but not phantoms; that was Hamlet's task, you know, and my recollection is that he succeeded ill at the business."

"Barring guard and fatigue duty and the deprivation of female society, our time passes very pleasantly visiting friends in other companies and regiments and playing checkers, chess and cards. Whist and euchre are the games most indulged in, but poker has many devotees, and is the favorite with a couple of messes of our company which occupy cabins on opposite sides of the company street and at the lower end of it. Each gives a peculiar but well-recognized notice of its readiness for a game. When the supper dishes are washed and put away Dick S---- steps outside, and cries in his deep bass voice, 'Char-c-o-a-l! Char-c-o-a-l! Char-c-o-a-l!" in exact imitation of the venders of that commodity in the large cities. Following him, or perhaps preceding him, the musical tenor of Walter B----- is heard singing the first stanza of an old song known as 'Old Mother Flannagan', and the mess from which it proceeds is surrounded by as many players as can find room to sit and the cash to venture. No great amount of money is ever won or lost, for our amateur gamblers have not yet acquired the nerve of professionals, and never go beyond 'cent ante'."

"... You were kind to wish we had a 'merry Christmas.' Every mess had its egg-nog, or a first-class substitute for it, the first thing in the morning, and something better than common for dinner, while after supper, the Veteran says, the whole company became 'tangle-footed.' But he must be mistaken; the fellow that is drunkest always claims to be the soberest man in the party. Anyhow, he and I were at Captain Cunningham's quarters until midnight, and when we left them I found no difficulty in reaching my own. The Veteran attributes the circumstance wholly to the fact that I went down-hill, but I scorn the base assumption. The next day headaches were both epidemic and contagious, and I admit that I caught one."

"You must pardon the dullness and egotism of this letter. Only the most trivial incidents occur in these days of waiting and watching. Had you acquaintances in the regiment, I might entertain you by relating some of their ups and downs. Deprived of that foundation for gossip, one has to be more egotistical than is in good taste. Sentiment would be dangerous, I fear, in this stage of our acquaintance, even if not interdicted by loyalty to 'our mutual friend'. If the war continues - which I hope and pray it may not - I will likely find many incidents to relate that will be entertaining to as ardent a Rebel as yourself."

---

Links to Other Sites With Letters Written by Soldiers From Texas

The Civil War Love Letters Page has a letter written by J.C. Morris of Company F,
21st Texas Cavalry, to his wife.

There is a letter from Pvt. Isaac Howard of Texas, to his father, in the "Images of Battle" series, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

(If you know of any other sites with letters from soldiers who served from Texas,
that can be linked to this page, please ?Subject=WBTS Letters">e-mail me.)