The following letter was written by Pvt. William R. Wood (1840-1878) of Co. F. 27th Illinois Infantry. The regiment was organized in August 1861 and at Jacksonville, Illinois, until being ordered to Cairo on September 1, 1861. They had an encampment there until March 1862 but participated on expeditions to Belmont, Missouri, on 6-7 November 1861 (just after this letter was written) and into Kentucky in mid-January 1862, eventually occupying Columbus, Kentucky.

William was from Brighton, Macoupin county, Illinois. When he enlisted, he was described as a 5′ 10.5″ tall blacksmith with brown hair and hazel eyes. In the 1860 US Census, William was apprenticed to and living with Edward Bliss Stratton and his family. After serving in the regiment for more than a year, William was detached to the 10th Wisconsin Battery on 10 December 1862. He died in 1878 at the age of 39.

Transcription

[Cairo, Illinois]
November 4, 1861

Well Molly, I have written to you several times and received no answer. I shall write once more. I thought that I would not write no more until I received a letter from you but concluded to write again. Molly, if you don’t think enough of me to write to me, then I will stop writing to you and here is my last letter till I receive a letter from you. But I must tell you the truth. I have become a very bad man—almost the worst in the world. Why is it? It is because I am surrounded with so much evil and that I have not received but little if any encouragement from home and from those that took to be my best and most affectionate Christian friends.

I was going to church today but for his preaching. I could not go for he was the next thing to the Catholics and I am not a Catholic.

I will now tell you something about the news of the day and the camp first. Will commence with a riot on our camp first. Some of the officers [were] trying to throw the Colonel out of his office but I think that can’t quite [do] it for they cannot find causes sufficient enough to do it. Some of the officers in most of the companies are under arrest for their movement and [our] company is the only one that is whole and full and clear of blemishes. It is thought that we will be the favorite of the regiment. It is thought that this regiment will go to attack Columbus soon. I hope so. But it is probable that we will come back again if we go and winter in this place.

Well, I must tell you about my little bunk in which I and my comrade stays. We have a nice place to stay. I boarded it up nicely and made a shelf in one end of it and a little cupboard in one corner and we have a writing desk in the other end and at night we make up a nice little bed of straw or hay, lay down our sheet of coffee sack and then take our two government blankets and put them over us and sleep very nice till morning

Well, I must bring my letter to a close but I will tell you that I papered my little bunk with the papers such as I could find but not quite enough to finish it all at present. I still remain your friend, — William R. Wood