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The is a long gap in the letters here. Since William Alexander had been captured at Spotsylvania Court House, Carroll County had continued to slide towards anarchy as bands of armed deserters roamed the hills and Union raiders began attacks on southwest Virginia. Christiansburg Depot had been burned in June 1864, and while Federal troops had been defeated at the first battle of Saltville 2 October, three weeks later General George Stoneman had succeeded in routing Confederate forces and destroying the salt works. Among those defending the New River Valley was a detachment of the 54th Infantry led by Robert Craig Trigg of Christiansburg that consisted largely of ex-deserters Trigg had been assigned to reenlist.

Stephen Mitchell Smith joined this band of some 300 soldiers in December 1864. Since he had been avoiding conscription for two years the assumption has been that he was drafted, but that does not necessarily follow. Trigg's command seems to have included volunteers defending the home counties, among them Smith's commander, Captain William R. Hammet, also of Christiansburg. The Smith letters show that Hammet, who had apparently left the 25th Virginia Cavalry under duress, was with Trigg's detachment three months before official records indicate a request for transfer.

This first letter was written while Stephen Mitchell Smith was on the road to Christiansburg; he tells his wife Mary that he does not know when he will be home but that he is well. Amos Stillwell, a neighboring farmer who like Stephen does not appear in the records of the 54th Regiment, is sick and returning home. In the postscript, Stephen asks her to send a letter to him via Stillwell if he returns to the company before Stephen gets home.

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I will dispach you a few lines this morning to let you where I am. I am at the Widow Hanks’s in three miles of the Grayson line. We will go to day or to morrow to Grayson. We have caught two deserters.

The morning night we left home we stayd [at] John Jackson’s above Laurel Forck. The next night we stayed [at] James S. Mitchell’s, the next night at a man’s house by the name of Cox, and last night at this place. I can not tell any about when I will get to go home.

I and Sandy are both well. Amos Stillwell is here verry sick, but will go home to day or to morrow. Mary do the best you can. Remember the sunset prayer meeting. I must close; my [croud?] is leaving me.

P. S. Tell [gosi?] and Temple howdy for me. It will not be necessary for you to write to me, for I could not get it, but if Amos Stillwell comes back to the company before I go home, I would like for you to send me a letter by him if you can and give me all the neighborhood news.

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