“They say the past is a foreign country—but sometimes it just feels like the back lot of a supply train.”
Last night I found myself thinking about a letter written by a corporal in 1863 who complained about losing his boots to a mudhole somewhere outside Vicksburg. It wasn’t the misery that stayed with me—it was the absurdity. He described them vanishing "with a slurp loud enough to summon angels" and then trudging barefoot, not in despair, but muttering about how socks should count as shoes in a war this ridiculous.
That one line stuck with me not because it was tragic or epic—but because it was true. It reminded me that every account I read isn’t just an artifact. It’s a voice. A tone. A real person doing their best to make sense of a world cracking under cannon fire and bad coffee.
Thoughts - candlelight for the soul.
Mac
Works Cited
[1] "Letter from Corporal John Griffith Jones, from a camp near Vicksburg, to his parents in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, 29 May 1863." People's Collection of Wales - February 17, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2025.
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