that the war must end soon, and the independence of the Southern States
be acknowledged. Our friends at home should not give aid and comfort to
the enemy. They may excite hopes which, in time, they will themselves be
compelled to help crush.

7. Few of the men who started home when I did have returned. The General
is becoming excited on the subject of absentees. From General Thomas'
corps alone there are sixteen thousand men absent, sick, pretending to
be sick, or otherwise. Of my brigade there are sixteen hundred men
present for duty, and over thirteen hundred absent--nearly one-half
away. The condition of other brigades is similar. If a man once gets
away, either into hospital or on detached duty, it is almost impossible
to get him back again to his regiment. A false excuse, backed up by the
false statement of a family physician, has hitherto been accepted; but
hereafter, I am told, it will not be. Uncle Sam can not much longer
stand the drain upon his finances which these malingerers occasion, and
his reputation suffers also, for he can not do with fifty thousand men
what it requires one hundred thousand to accomplish.

People may say Rosecrans had at the battle of Murfreesboro nearly one
hundred regiments. A regiment should contain a thousand men; in a
hundred regiments, therefore, there should have been one hundred
thousand men. With this force he should have swallowed Bragg; but they
must understand that the largest of these regiments did not contain over
five hundred men fit for duty, and very many not over three hundred. The
men in hospital, the skulkers at home, and the skedaddlers here, count
only on the muster and pay-rolls; our friends at home should remember,
therefore, that when they take a soldier by the hand who should be with
his regiment, and say to him, "Poor fellow, you have seen hard times
enough, stay a little longer, the army will not miss you," that some
other poor fellow, too brave and manly to shirk, shivers through the
long winter hours at his own post, and then through other long hours at
the post of the absentee, thus doing double duty; and they should bear
in mind, also, that in battle this same poor fellow has to fight for
two, and that battles are lost, the war prolonged, and the National arms
often disgraced, by reason of the absence of the men whom they encourage
to remain at home a day or two longer. If every Northern soldier able to
do duty would do it, Rosecrans could sweep to Mobile