CIVIL WAR LETTER HOME SILVER RIVER, TENNESSEE

                                    Camp near Silver River Tennessee

                                                      November 24^th 1862

                                             Dear Mother

                                                      I received a letter from you this evening dated Nov. 19^th, 1862 in which you state that you received a letter from me of the 1^st of this month and one of the 13^th at the same time. I suppose that the one of the 1^st was laying in the mail some place until communication was opened between here and Louisville, Kentucky. We are camped between two rivers one of the the above name and the other , Stone River, the latter is a fine stream with high banks but the other is a stream about the size of Silver Creek in Union County, Indiana. I wrote a letter to father today with the last stamp I had on it but I can borrow one for this letter. You asked me why the Captain of Company I resigned. It was because the 1^st Lieutenant and him could not live together.

Captain Patterson was a man who drank considerable liquor and it was the cause  of it making him unfit for duty so that the Colonel recommended him to resign and done all in his power to get his papers thru. Since he has left Lieutenant McKiney and Lieutenant Davis have been promoted, the first to Captain and the second to 1^st Lieutenant. And Wm ?ering and C.R Burgess have also been promoted. The former to 2^nd Lieutenant and the latter to 1^st Sergeant. You wish to know what I mean by styling myself the reformed son. I can answer that by confessing to you (Dear Mother not wanting it to cause you any pain) that I have indulged in spending my time in idleness and uselessness until  today when I was detailed to come to the place where I am and in doing so I got out of bad company into good and under the control of a religious man who has some care for the good of men’s souls as well as their bodies.
 I have pledged myself never to be caught using profane language to be found idling away my time, gaming or doing anything is unbecoming of an upright young man. I have partly the promise of a better place in a few days. It is now getting late so I will have to close soon. Give my respects to all. Tell me something of my old schoolmates Shriner Nutter and others who I do not just at present think of. Write soon and often.

Your affectionate son

         Luther M Beaver

PS Direct your letters to Nashville Tennessee to which place the mail is taken every day and mail brought back.

The places he names sometimes have vanished or are very hard to find. The history of the 15th Indiana shows that they had just finished marching up to this camp the day before. It always amazes me how the mail kept up with them and found its way to the soldiers with such an apparent lack of difficulty. Writing as the former mail officer for the Middle East Force, we sometimes went weeks without getting or sending any mail and we lost an entire plane loaded with mail when it was destroyed in a crash taking off out of Sigonella.

Silver Creek, Maury County, Tennessee