re time." (p.38) Wills is obviously trying to spare the folks at home about the miseries of camp life, and the illness that comes with living in close quarters and in tents, regardless of the weather. "The sickly season is over now and the health is improving very muchàI tell you I feel as strong as two mules and am improving." (p. 39) But, when Wills and his troop encountered fighting, he had to report that "Two men killed on the plank road, two more woundedà" (p. 77) Equally serious was the condition of the troop's horses: "àour horses dying off very fast from horse cholera. The latter is a serious thing in a regiment where the men own the horses themselves. For they (or nearly all of them) cannot buy horses. Most of them are still owing for the horses they have " (p. 77) If nothing else, this begins to point out to the reader that the men enlisted in this war not only are making personal and bodily sacrifices, but they may well be in debt for the horses and other equipment they bring along with them, which is their property not the government's, and which they seem to have pledged as part of their determination to go to war and get the fighting over and done with.
If war changes people, Wills' letters certainly prove that. More than a year after he enlisted, in 1861, it is now August, 1862. In that year, we can see how Wills's feelings about the South have hardened. Having tasted battle, seen friends wounded and die, and territory fought over, won, lost, and then re-taken, his letter home now reflects a bitterness that was certainly not there a year earlier: "For myself, I know it's a huge thing we have on our heads, but I believe I'd rather see the whole country red with blood, and ruined together than have this 7,000,000 of invalids (these Southerners are nothing else as a people) conquer, or successfully resist the power of the North."
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