The following letter was written by a soldier named “Henry” serving in the 16th Massachusetts Infantry. This regiment saw heavy casualties during the war. Of more than 1300 men, 112 were killed in battle, 360 were wounded and 52 died from their wounds. Disease claimed 115 and 65 were taken as prisoners of war, 32 of them dying in Confederate prisons. Another 344 went home afflicted with wounds or disease as disability discharges. If Henry was from Boston, as I think he was, he was probably a member of Co. A, or Co. F.
Henry wrote the letter to his friend, Jerry Norris—a clerk employed by Augustus Hardy working at 3-4 Charlestown street in Boston. Hardy’s business was “doors, sashes, and blinds.”
A calling card distributed by Augustus Hardy. His business was at 3-4 Charlestown Street in Boston, opposite the Boston & Maine Railroad Depot.
Transcription
Fort Beauregard 1 Munson’s Hill, Virginia November 1st 1862
Friend Jerry,
After a very long interval, will endeavor to write you a few lines to let you know that I am still alive and well hoping this will find you the same. I have received several letters from you since I last wrote. I can’t give you the dates but one I received was dated September 2nd. It had been going the rounds of the army.
There is no news here. About ten days ago at dark we received orders to get ready to march in light order and ready we got and started, we not knowing where. We marched about four miles to this hill. The regiment is camped inside of the work which is circular. This is the hill that the rebels got last fall and where they had the quaker guns. We have a battery of artillery with us. We are in shelter tents and it is mighty cold nights.
What we are here for is more than I can tell. We are having a better chance here to drill the recruits than if we were back in camp. If they would send up our Sibley tents and knapsacks, we could live a little more comfortable than we are now. I would have wrote from here before if I could have got paper, &c. About that dollar, send me half in stamps and half in money and I will get a likeness taken for somebody.
It is utterly impossible for me to make out a letter. Tell Tom Beverly 2 that I have received a letter from Charley Putnam. 3 He is in the 1st Wisconsin Vols., Co. I, 3rd Division, via Louisville. He is in a hospital there having been wounded in the neck at Chaplin Heights [Hills], Kentucky. 4 He wants him to write to [him] He is a very patriotic youth. If you find out what regiment Sam and Ebe are in, let me know.
The weather is getting very cold here and we feel it more keenly. I should think you would feel lonesome this winter bumming around alone. You will have to stay at home the nights that you ain’t on Eden Street and knit or sew for the brave soldiers. It is a good time for you now to commence to live a good, moral life now that you have no Engine and Bummers to lead you away. You surely can’t be lead away by the weaker sex and they are the only thing to be feared now.
I do hope you will be able to weather it through this winter. You may have the pleasure of having either me or some other boy home for a while this winter if we stay here. We have got no new officers yet and don’t know when we are a going to get any. Once in a while we meet some of the (40th) Regiment—that is, the Chelsea Company, now H. [The] 1st [Massachusetts] is not a Chelsea company now. If you could only see the old men and muckers we are getting, you would be disgusted with the company and everything else—all perfect strangers to us and probably always will. It is reported that we have got 30 state prison birds in the regiment’s recruits. How true it is, I can’t tell.
You will please excuse my sending this letter without prepayment but the truth is, I have no money or stamps. Please write as soon as you get this and send the stamps.
Forgive all negligence and delay. My love to everybody and particularly yourself, — Henry
[to] J. Norris, 3 [ ] to Charlestown Street, Boston, Mass.
Care of A[ugustus] Hardy, Esqr.
1 Henry’s letter refers to the circular fort atop Munson’s Hill built by the Confederates in the summer and fall of 1861 as “Fort Beauregard.” I’ve not seen this particular fort referred to as “Fort Beauregard” previously. Once the Federals occupied late in 1861, they named it Fort Munson. Fort Beauregard generally refers to the fort built by the Confederates near Manassas Junction. He also mentions that it was the site of the quaker guns that General Joseph E. Johnston had planted there to make the fort appear much stronger than it really was. See “All the World is Laughing,” by Walter Coffey.
2 Believed to be Thomas Alexander Beverly (1835-1915), a native of Scotland, who was working as a boilermaker in Boston in 1861 when he married Elizabeth O’Neill (1837-1864). By 1870, Thomas had relocated to Kossuth, Manitowoc county, Wisconsin.
3 Frank Charles (“Charley”) Putnam (1842-1913) was the son of Simeon Waters Putnam (1818-1882) and Phebe H. Spear (1821-1849). Charley was going to school in Hingham, Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, at the time of the 1860 US Census. He was enumerated as an 18 year-old in the Charles Rogers residence.
4 The Battle of Chaplin Hills was known by its more popular name, the Battle of Perryville.
View of Union Soldiers of the 16th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment Parading Along a Street After Their Return From Fighting in the Civil War in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1865).
Spared & Shared 23 