This letter was written by John Ingerson (1837-1913) of Sycamore, Wyandot county, Ohio. He was the son of Alvin C. Ingerson (1815-1857) and Tirza Ann Palmer (1816-1895). John was 24 years old when he enlisted in August 1861 to serve as a private in Co. G, 49th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). He survived the war but was wounded in the Battle of Pickett’s Mills, Georgia, on 27 May 1864. He was discharged for disability on 29 October 1864. [It should be noted that John’s obituary appearing in the Marion Star (Marion, OH) claimed that John was “wounded at Gettysburg when a shell hit him in the face, cutting his upper lip and terribly disfiguring him.” Since the regiment never fought at Gettysburg, the wound is presumed to have occurred at the Battle of Pickett’s Mills in Georgia. The 1890 Veteran’s Schedule claims that John’s wound was caused by a gunshot wound, not a shell.]

After the war, John returned to farming in Ohio. In 1875, he married Lydia Ann Shaffer (1839-1931)

Transcription

Camp George
December 10th 1861

Well friend Mother, I guess tonight I would write you a few lines to let you know how I am. I am well at present and so is all of the rest of the Sycamore Boys and I hope these few lines will find you the same. The 32nd had a fight yesterday and they lost eleven men and had twelve wounded and the secesh lost forty and about that many wounded. The young men killed several of their horses. There only was three companies of them against five hundred and they whipped them and made them [paper creased]…If Co. G had been with them, we would have taken eight of their cannons. The boys got two or three of their horses and several of their guns.

Now Mother, I want you to write to me and tell me all of the news that it afloat in Sycamore. I am the fattest now that I ever was in all of my life. I only weigh one hundred and sixty-five pounds. We have between 60 and 70,000 men here in the field with us and I think we will flog them nicely. I hope so.

We have plenty to eat and plenty to wear and good water to drink. I hant been sick yet and I hope I won’t get in that way. I got my pay last Monday but I don’t want you to think hard of me for not sending you some of it for I got five dollars of Daniel Hartsough to get me a pair of boots and I’d drawn five dollars off the sutler which makes ten dollars [I owed] and I have got [only] a little left and I think that will last me for a good while. We will draw pay again in twenty days and then I will send all of that to you for I shan’t need it.

So now I must stop writing for this time. Write soon and direct your letters in the care of Capt. [Luther M.] Strong, 49th Regiment, OV, USA. by the way of Louisville, Kentucky.

This from John Ingerson

To Tirza Ann Ingerson