Captain C. C. Smith, commanding Battalion Thirteenth United States
Regulars.

My dear friend:  I cannot sleep to-night till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child.  I realize that you all feel for my family the attachment of kindred, and I assure you of full reciprocity.  Consistent with a sense of duty to my profession and office, I could not leave my post, and sent for the family to come to me in that fatal climate, and in that sickly period of the year, and behold the result!  The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plan of life, now floats a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters, clustered about him.  For myself, I ask no sympathy.  On, on I must go, to meet a soldier’s fate, or live to see our country rise superior to all factions, till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and by all the powers of the earth.

But Willie was, or thought he was, a sergeant in the Thirteenth.  I have seen his eye brighten, his heart beat, as he beheld the battalion under arms, and asked me if they were not real soldiers.  Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers.

God only knows why he should die thus young.  He is dead, but will not be forgotten till those who knew him in life have followed him to that same mysterious end.

Please convey to the battalion my heart-felt thanks, and assure each and all that if in after-years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust!  Your friend,

W. T. Sherman, Major-general.

Long afterward, in the spring of 1867, we had his body disinterred and brought to St. Louis, where he is now buried in a beautiful spot, in Calvary Cemetery, by the side of another child, “Charles,” who was born at Lancaster, in the summer of 1864, died early, and was buried at Notre Dame, Indiana.  His body was transferred at the same time to the same spot.  Over Willie’s grave is erected a beautiful marble monument, designed and executed by the officers and soldiers, of that battalion which claimed him as a sergeant and comrade.

During the summer and fall of 1863 Major-General S. A. Hurlbut was in command at Memphis.  He supplied me copies of all dispatches from Washington, and all the information he possessed of the events about Chattanooga.  Two of these dispatches cover all essential points: 

Washington city, September 15, 1863—­5 p.m.

Major-General S. A. Hurlbut, Memphis: