The following letter was written by Richard G. Ketchum (1832-1872), the son of John Ketchum (1798-1886) and Sarah Groome (1796-1873) of Bristol, Ontario county, New York. Richard wrote the letter to his younger brother, Jesse W. Ketchum (b. 1841).

Richard served late in the Civil War, joining Co. H, 21st New York Cavalry in the fall of 1863. From the letter we learn that Richard was detached from his regiment working as a teamster for the General Hospital at Frederick, Maryland, where he imagined himself the beau idéal of Frederick. Perhaps the war had narrowed down the bachelor pool a bit.

Transcription

USA General Hospital
Frederick, [Maryland]
June 19th 1865

Dear Brother,

This morning I received your kind letter. I was glad to hear from home once more. So I must come home before long as I like to stay so well and they—the people here—as well as Dr. Helsby, think so much of me that they don’t want me to go yet. They say they can’t get along without me, So the girls are trying hard to nab me for a husband. There is forty leven of them after me. Yesterday two girls came in and enquired for me, but another girl had me to her house. She is [a] very steady girl too, and [a] hard working one. She is so small that I could carry her home without setting her down and not get tired. She loves me better, or she loves me stronger than any other girls do.

There is another one whose father is so rich that he won’t work and her mother is so fat that she tales off all her clothing but her shimmy and hoops as the weather is so warm. This girl is only thirteen years old and she is as big as Mary. I took her age at twenty-six. Now I think I better leave here. I can tell you plainer when I come home about all this.

I hardly know what to do to work here in harvest or come home. I shall write before I start. I think of going to Pennsylvania to see Minnie and her brother as he has come home from a reb’s prison. He was as large as John but now he only weighs eighty lbs. they say and it will be six months before he is like he was once. I will send you a letter from them to me if I can find it. I have so many letters, I shall have to burn most of it before I leave.

It is raining hard now only a big shower. I have bought some goats that I am is going to take home if I can. I gave three dollars for old, nanny goat and three for two kids. I have been well ever since last September. We got some goats then so I think it is their stink what keeps me well. You can smell them as soon as they get to camp. Then you will be sure to know that I am there. I guess (clean your nose). I have to drive a four horse team for the people here next Saturday to a spree. They say it’s the last ride with me.

Well Jesse, I must close this hoping to be home soon. Then we can have a long chat about Frederick. I goes out in the country most every day some. Part of this county is beautiful—so nice that I would like to live there. I wish I had five thousand dozen chickens down here. I could sell them in Baltimore for one dollar per pair no larger than doves. Is not that high? The people here in the country gets thirty cents apiece for them. Beef is twenty cents a lb. That is why chickens are so high. I buy for Dr. Helsby most every day as I goes in the country some twenty miles out and back the same day. I must stop. Square off, So goodbye, — Dick