Your letter asking of your fathers record in the C. S. Army.  In Aug 1861, R. J. Hall with Q. [Jabez L.] Drake and your father raised a company which was formed into the 33rd Mississippi Regiment. Letter of this company was Company F [Leake Rebels].  On organization of this company at Carthage, R. J. Hall was made captain. J.W. Sharkey (Billie my brother) who was Sergeant Major of the 6th Mississippi was elected 1st Lieut. Q. [Jabez L.] Drake 2nd and Thos L. Cooper 3rd Lieut.  The 33rd was placed in the brigade of Vielpigre [Villepigue] at Port Hudson and was at the Battle of Shil. [33rd fought at Corinth October 3-4, 1862, but is not shown on official records as being at Shiloh]  On the formation of the 33rd, Q. [Jabez L.] Drake was elected Major and your father promoted to 2nd Lieut. of Co. F.   After the fall of Port Hudson the 33rd Mississippi was placed in the brigade of W. S. Featherston; Loring’s Division at Vicksburg.
    On the loss of the Lieut., Q. [Jabez L.] Drake was made Lieut. Colonel, and Capt. R. J. Hall made Major, (Billie) Sharkey promoted to Capt., and T. L. Cooper promoted to 1st Lieut. Billie was killed at Peach Tree Creek [20 Jul 1864] near Atlanta and your father became Capt. of Co. F, 33rd Mississippi.  Col. Drake was killed and the regiment lost heavily.  Your father carried the company with Gen. Hood commander to Franklin.  When Col. Hall was wounded and the regiment became so small that the 33rd, the 3rd and 1st Mississippi Battalion were all consolidated into the regiment [33rd Infantry Regiment was consolidated April 9, 1865 with 1st and 22nd Infantry Regiments and 1st Sharpshooters Battalion and designated as 22nd Infantry Regiment Consolidated], and your father became Capt. of Co. F, 3rd, 33rd and 1st Battalion, all in one company and was in the Battle of Bentonville, N.C. and surrendered under Jos. F. Johnston at Greensboro, N.C. April 28th [26th], 1865.  Your father was a good soldier, a fine and humane commander and the company loved him and as he was in command at the end, the company was always called "Cooper’s Company."   I was in the same brigade [Featherston's] but not in the same Regiment only from Vicksburg to Greensboro.
    When the 3rd 33rd and 1st Battalion consolidated into one regiment, then we belonged to the 3rd under which name were paroled at Greensboro, N. C. Col. Sam [?] Morgan of Leflore County, our Colonel and your father senior Captain acting Major.
    My health is good and I shall be at reunion in Memphis next week where perhaps I may meet you as the sons of Vets will be largely represented. I fear your Alabama candidate for President is defeated. While he is an honest true democrat, he is handicapt by his wet support and woman suffrage and would have been beaten in November. I think we should take some honest true democrat like Glass, J. W. Davis, etc. who can run without a handicap on settled issues, that will bob up in every canvas. Woman Suffrage and Prohibition are dead issues.

You and your father's friend,
Clay Sharkey

    An action in the campaign for Atlanta, the Battle of Peachtree Creek was a bitter defeat for the 33rd.  Official history was written and accounts were written by the participants.  A mixture of both is recorded by Dunbar Rowland in his history of Mississippi Units:

    At Peachtree Creek, July 20, where the [Featherston's] brigade charged through a difficult field, attempting to break the Federal line which was protected with rail works thrown up as the fight began, the losses of the regiment were severe. General Featherston wrote:  "Col. J. L. Drake, the only field officer with the Thirty-third Regiment, a gallant and excellent officer, fell beyond the enemy's first line of works, leading his regiment in the charge and displaying the highest qualities of the true soldier."  Among the killed were also Captains Sharkey, Lamkin and D. A. Herring, and Lieutenants Kennedy and A. G. West and Ensign E. F. Leavitt.   Capt. Moses Jackson, left in command, reported that the regiment carried the temporary rail works and advanced into a ravine 100 yards beyond, where the fighting was very stubborn.  They were on the extreme right of the brigade, and without support on that flank, Wright's Brigade having failed to come forward, and were forced to retreat with the brigade. Casualties, killed, wounded and missing, 15 officers, 144 men.   Colonel Wood, commanding the Union brigade attacked, reported: "The Twenty-sixth Wisconsin captured a stand of colors, and the skirmishers of the One Hundred and Thirty-sixth New York, a battle-flag.  This brigade buried the bodies of thirty-eight dead found behind and near our advanced line of battle, among whom was Colonel Drake, Thirty-third Mississippi." The Colonel of the Twentieth Connecticut wrote that "wounded officers belonging to the Third, Thirty-third, Fifty-fifth and Forty-fourth Mississippi Regiments, left on the field in front of the Twentieth, remarked that they lost more men during this engagement in killed and wounded than they had before during the war."  Colonel Buckingham, of the Twentieth Connecticut, wrote that "during our advance a rebel color bearer in front of the right of my regiment was killed, and a rebel officer, who sprang forward and seized the colors to bear them off was also shot dead but a soldier from the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin succeeded in obtaining the flag."  Colonel Winkler, of the Wisconsin Regiment, reported that when the forces in his front gave way, his regiment pursued and "captured the regimental flag of the Thirty-third Mississippi," and that in the fight Colonel Drake and 34 others of the Mississippi Regiment were killed, many wounded and 40 captured.

    Mathew Andrew Dunn, Company K, Amite Defenders, 33rd Mississippi, wrote regularly to his wife, Virginia.  This excerpt from his letter of 01 Aug 1864, just after the battle, tells of the action:

…Our division met with a Serious misfortune on the 20th of July - we charged the Yankees and our Brigade being on the extreme right of the Division we were badly cut to pieces by a Brigade on our right not coming up to Support our flank - over half of our Regt that was engaged was killed and wounded.  Our Co was not into it as we were on other duty.  Our Regt Suffered worse than any other, being on the flank and was exposed to an enfillading fire.  We lost our Col.  He charged waving his Sword until he fell.  Capt. Jackson commanded during the balance of the engagement.   Our colorbearer was killed.  Others attempted to get the colors and were wounded.  So we lost our colors.

    Contemporary Union accounts of the battle confirm the disaster that befell the 33rd. Lt. Col. Frederick C. Winkler, commanding officer of the 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment wrote this letter to his wife July 21st, 1864:

At last I have some good news.  We fought the hardest battle and won the greatest victory yesterday of all the campaign, and my regiment covered itself with glory.   We were attacked by superior numbers, the forces on our left failed us; we were outflanked, but we whipped the enemy, turned, and pursued him to the position we coveted, got it and held it.  We fought the 33rd Mississippi, and virtually annihilated it; we killed the Colonel and thirty-four men, whom we have picked up inside the point we pursued them to, End beyond that our fire must have done them severe damage. The ground was covered with wounded; I had no time to count them, but had three stretchers working all night, carrying them to the rear.  We took its flags and six officers' swords.   Everybody is speaking the praise of the 26th today.  We had a very critical position and everything depended upon holding it; officers and men did bravely.  The regiment we fought had nearly four hundred men; I only two hundred and sixty.  I lost severely, two captains killed, one wounded, a lieutenant wounded, seven men killed and thirty-four wounded.  Upon the whole, our loss is comparatively light; most of the wounds are light, and our success was great.  We took a number of prisoners.  I am well and unhurt.

    Frederick Charles Buerstatte, a soldier in the 26th, also documented the battle with a closer view of the action:

    20th July - Today we are engaged in a terrible battle with the Rebs at Peach Tree Creek.  At 2:00 o'clock PM, our brigade which was at the left Rank of the corps, joined the 4th Corps in battle line. The enemy attacked at which time we advanced.  Our regiment was as always in the forward battle line.  We advanced over a small hill and into a valley in which a small creek flowed. Then the Rebs came toward us down the hill in front of us.  Now the firing really began. The gunfire exceeded anything I had ever heard before.  We loaded and fired as fast as possible.   The Rebs came to within 10 paces of us, at which time our musket balls became too thick for them.  They turned to the right and retreated up the hill with us behind them. This was a sight which I had never seen before and hope never to see again.   The entire field was scattered with dead, wounded and dying.  The wounded moaned so much that I could hardly watch. However, we had no time and had to advance up the hill.
    There stood a fence behind which we petitioned ourselves.  The Rebs tried to advance again but did not succeed, because a battery was placed on the hill behind us which greeted the enemy terribly with cannonballs.  After 4 hours of firing, we were finally relieved and went to the second battle line.  The firing lasted into the night. At night I helped carry more wounded from the field.  We also captured a flag from the 33rd Mississippi Regiment.
    21st July - This morning our regiment, after a sleepless night, had to bury the dead Rebs which laid before our regiment.  They were all from the 33rd Mississippi Regiment.  Our regiment lost 9 dead and 36 wounded.  We buried over 50 Rebs, among them Colonel Drake and most of the officers of the 33rd Miss. Regiment. Now we had to clean our guns.