November 6, 1863,
Bohemian Bgde. Headquarters (Harris Mansion),
Chattanooga, Tennessee.

My Dear Comrades of the Charcoal and Lead,

I pause to send this letter as events heat up here in the damp recesses of southeastern Tennessee. General Grant has been here now for the better part of two weeks, inspecting our lines of defense and still awaiting the arrival of General Sherman, who is making slow progress through the swollen rivers and muddy roads of Secessia. We remain besieged, although there is wind of dissension in the Rebel high command, which will hopefully coincide most propitiously with Sherman's approach.

Daily artillery salvos continue, their pungent scent mingling with the aroma of campfires and our unwashed gallant legions, giving a friendly reminder to the other side of our devotion to continued social intercourse. An Ohio picket was given the lash yesterday for being caught trading with his Johnnie counterparts, exchanging his hardtack for their chaw. He is said to have uttered a witticism prior to his punishment to the effect of "That Georgia juice was well worth the Provost's caress." I must say I was impressed with both the alliteration and sublimity of the remark, as well as the pluck required to voice it to his captors. Perhaps he would be better suited to plying our form of lead, rather than theirs.

There is some new movement on Bragg's left near a small crossroads known locally as Moorpark Junction, or "Dry Bottom," as the local contraband call it, the implications of which I dare not contemplate. My plans are to drift in that direction tomorrow afternoon in search of sketches and anecdotes. The contraband children proliferate daily within our lines, seeking rations, handouts, small coins, and seeking to wait upon our every personal need in return. We have been officially instructed to ignore them, but how can the rowboat ignore the typhoon? It would appear that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation is not having its desired restraining effect on the sable residents of Tennessee's "loyal" counties; the thirst for freedom supersedes the artificialities of political construct and expediency. This sophism, of course, seems to have very little effect indeed on the rancor and invective of the local Secessionist women. A particularly saucy young lass saluted me with a round from her chamber pot as we passed near what was left of her grand home two days ago, despite my rigorous efforts at gallantry and repeated protestations that I was a Non-Combatant in her country.

There has been some news of the broader war which has managed to reach our lines via one of the few telegraph lines which remains unmolested. Burnside has driven Longstreet off from Knoxville, or so the dispatch claims, Fort Sumter continues to take a pummeling in Charleston from our Navy (with continued defiance), and the Rebel pirate Semmes is said to be wreaking havoc among our merchant marine in the East Indies. President Lincoln is also planning to make an appearance at the dedication of the Soldier's Cemetery near the field at Gettysburg; it seems only yesterday when we were engulfed in the shot and shell of those terrible days.

General Grant has been most hospitable to myself and the other members of the press here; only yesterday he dispatched his personal surgeon to ameliorate the boils which Deane of the Chicago Tribune acquired on his feet from his (and I quote) "superior English leather" boots. We can only hope that General Grant will give a similarly salutory treatment of General Bragg's "superior lines."

I must away, as the chuckwagon is making its boisterous arrival, and the word is that Sergeant O'Hanlon, a cook of the 15th Illinois Cavalry (General Hooker's personal escort), is quite the connoisseur of the ubiquitous, and much maligned, Army Bean.

May you all find your way to the finest society and libation, and may we meet soon in more suitable circumstances to share the same.

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