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Shelbyville, Ky., Octr. 6th 1862

Dear Mary

I wrote yesterday but having no opportunity to send my letter I came to town this evening to mail it.¹ I am very well. The rebels are leaving the state from every quarter.² I see but little prospect of our getting into a fight for some time. The health of the company is generally good. Write soon.

Your affect. Husband
J. F. Culver

1. The 129th Illinois, along with other units of Dumont’s division, marched from Louisville on the 3d. A diarist recorded, “The sun was tremendously hot, and as the water in our canteens gave out, no springs or creeks on our way, the knapsacks overloaded and heavy, it may be imagined that this our first day’s tramp was anything but pleasant.” Two days were required to march from Louisville to Shelbyville, a distance of 32 miles. William Grunert, History of the One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. . . (Winchester, 111., 1866) pp. 5-6. [↩]
2. J.F.C. misinterpreted Confederate troop movements. On October 1 General Bragg, leaving Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk in command of his army at Bardstown, had started for Lexington. Polk was under instructions to slowly retire to Bryantsville. At Lexington, Bragg ordered Kirby Smith with all his forces to Frankfort to assist in the October 4 inauguration of Richard Hawes as Confederate governor of Kentucky. At Lexington on the 2d, Bragg, learning that Buell’s columns were advancing from the Louisville perimeter, ordered Polk to march at once toward Frankfort to strike the Federal army in the flank and rear. [↩]