The following letter was offered on eBay in early June 2008:
John W. Boston of the 81st Ohio Infantry, Company G.
Camp near Pocahontas, Tenn.,
June 8, 1863
Reads in part:
…we in one day and a half marched 35 miles and built 2 bridges one across the Tuscumbia and the other across the Hatchee River for our artillery to cross on. We had 6 pieces with us and our whole brigade. The 9th Illinois was mounted on mules we are now in Pocahontas, Tennessee, the country has not so much destruction been played on it as around Corinth and the people are more civilized here than in Mississippi and you can see a difference even in the niggers for there is as much difference between those here and the Mississippi nigger as there is between black and white and there is also as much difference between the land as there is in the people…
Boston mustered into Company G on 6 September 1862 and mustered out on 13 July 1865.
