| Summary: | During the Civil War, Semple served as a captain of an artillery battery organized in Montgomery (known as Semple's Battery). He was later appointed a major and transferred to Mobile. In the letter he discusses his health after a recent fall and the comfortable place in which he is staying ("Every body tells me I look so well I am almost ashamed to remain at my snug quarters"); the landscape in Tennessee ("I am as much delighted with this beautiful country as ever. I don't know how I shall reconcile my fondness for a grass country with your fancy for a semitropical home"); and his efforts to receive a promotion and be relocated to Alabama: "You were always impatient at the pains I took to acquire some political influence; I think now you must regret as I do, that I had not devoted myself to it more thoroughly, for it is unquestionably true, that political influence has much to do with all appointments." He also mentions the situation in Vicksburg: "We are awaiting with great anxiety the news from Vicksburg. If Grant meets with a calamitous repulse, there is little doubt that we shall advance...If on the contrary as I cannot help having great fear, Vicksburg should fall, then the policy of the enemy will be to press us on every point. In any event we may look for a collision here in the next two weeks." A transcription is included.
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