The following letter was written by Andrew Hamilton Wallace (1839-1864), the son of Joseph and Mary (Logan) Wallace of Blue Rock, Muskingum county, Ohio. Andrew enlisted as a corporal in Co. D, 78th Ohio Infantry. This company was raised in Muskingum and Morgan Counties, and organized December 21st, 1861, in Camp Gilbert, Zanesville, Ohio. E. Hillis Talley was commissioned Captain; Benjamin A. Blandy, First Lieutenant; William S. Harlan, Second Lieutenant. Captain Talley was taken sick while the regiment was at Crump’s Landing. He was immediately removed to the hospital at Savannah, Tenn., where he died April 1st, 1862. He was the first officer of the regiment to fall a sacrifice to his country; being a young man of much promise, the only son of his parents, and loved and esteemed by all who knew him, caused his death to be deeply felt and regretted. About this time Lieutenant Blandy resigned and Lieutenant Harlan was promoted to Captain.

Andrew was killed in action before Atlanta in the Battle of Bald Hill on 22 July 1864.

Transcription

Crump’s Landing, Harden county, Tennessee
Sunday eve, March 30th 1862

Dear Friend Sallie,

Your kind and welcome letter was received this morning. I was very glad to hear from you that you were well and enjoying yourselves at home and I hope these few lines may find you still the same. Your letter finds me well and enjoying myself very well at present.

Well, Sallie, it is with sorrow and regret that I inform you of the death of our friends Andrew Dixon and William Kenney. Andrew died on Tuesday the 25th at the hospital at Savannah which is about four miles below this place. And Kenney died on the 28th at the same place. There is a great deal of sickness here. It has been caused by the change of climate but there has not many died of this regiment yet. There has not more than ten or twelve died yet.

Well, Sallie, the rest of the boys are well at present and can just go for the crackers and beans and you ought to be here to help us to go for them some day. Well, Sallie, we are encamped on the Tennessee River four miles above Savannah. It is a very nice place here and the weather is very warm here now. It is as warm here now as it generally is in June up in Ohio. I am sitting before my tent on the wood pile in my shirt sleeves and one of our boys—maybe you know him—Wils Fox, is holding the candle while I write. But I expect it will be the last one that I will ever write here for we are a going to move tomorrow but I can’t tell where we will go to from here but I think it is to Corinth.

Well, Sallie, I wish you could of been here to of seen Wils and I baking bread to day. We got some of the nicest cakes baked that you ever saw. They are regular biscuits or big meeting cakes one but I can’t tell which.

Well, Sallie, I wish that I could been at home to of went to the distracted [protracted] meeting. I think that if I had been there, I could of raised an excitement for them and I would like to of been there to of seen the girls and to see if they look anything like they did when we left them. Sallie, I must tell you about the Southerner I saw the other day. It was a live woman. It was, I believe, the biggest one that I ever saw since I left home and it was a white one that was the beauty of the animal.

Well, Sallie, tell all the girls that I send my best respects to them and that I want them to write to me and that I will answer them and tell them that if they will come over some Saturday evening, that they can have my company if they desire it. No more at present but remain your friend, — A. H. Wallace.

N. B. A[lbert] Dempster says to tell you that he is all right and I guess he is. Write soon or a little sooner if you can. I send my love to all of you girls. Goodbye Sallie.