The following letter was written by 25 year-old John Byron Ruth (1836-1913) who enlisted on 25 April 1861 to serve three months in Co. A, 13th Pennsylvania Infantry. He mustered out of the regiment on 6 August 1861.

The service record of this regiment follows:
Moved to Greencastle June 14, thence advance on Williamsport June 15-16. 
Goose Creek, Edward’s Ferry, June 18. 
At Williamsport till July 4. 
Escort Rhode Island Battery to Martinsburg. 
Moved to Bunker Hill July 16, and to Charlestown July 17. 
To Harper’s Ferry July 21. 
Moved to Harrisburg, Pa., and mustered out August 6, 1861.

In the 1850 US Directory, John was enumerated as a 13 year-old bot residing in the boarding house managed by 65 year-old John McElroy, an engineer from Ireland. In the 1861 Pittsburg City Directory, John was listed as a machinist. A family tree was created for John in Ancestry.com but it does not name his parents. He was married in 1865 to Abigail H. Griswold (1836-1901) and the couple lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1870 where he worked as a grocer. By 1880, the family had relocated to Omaha, Nebraska.

Transcription

Camp Scott, York, Pennsylvania
May 5th 1861

Dear Aunt Sarah,

It is Sabbath evening. We have just got our supper. It was a very easy matter to get supper as we have but two articles to cook—that is meat and crackers. We fry the meat, then we fry the crackers in the grease. Our mess is composed of nine as gay Boys as in the company. Their names is as follows, C[harles] G. Edstrom, B. H. Coyle, W[illiam] G. Lang, W[illiam] Easton, B[enjamin] F. King, F. Alwood, G[eorge] W. Keifer, [James] M. Hoon, and your nephew, John B. Ruth—the finest in the mess (in a Horn). We have a morning and evening Salvo [?] of our one composition. The chorus is gay and happy. We had a gay and happy time on last Friday night. It snowed all day a Friday and rained all night. In the morning there was 6 inches water in the shanty. We were all wet as it came through the entrance and we had no fire. I was near froze in the morning.

We were all marched to town and quartered in a school house until this morning when we were marched back to camp. Being quartered in a school accounts for me having pen and ink [which] I appropriated to my own use. We are as wild a set of Boys as ever came to this town. I do not mean to say that we are wicked, but just full of fun. There has not been a man of our company that has been in the guard house yet nor one of them drunk. We have the best name in town of any company here. Most of the companies, when they get out, gets drunk and insult all the women they meet.

We will leave here this week for Wilmington, Delaware. That is the report. We will go through Baltimore. We have an artillery company to go along and if they attack us, they will have a hard time for the Boys will put them through. If they throw bricks at us, we will burn the town down. There will be three thousand of us and we think we can put them through—at least we will try.

I received your letter yesterday. It was forwarded from Harrisburg. I was somewhat surprised at hearing that E. McDonald went to the house for my picture. She wanted me to give my picture to her. I just told her that I left one for her at the house. I told her to go up and you would give it to her but I had no thought that she would go to the house.

Well, I will close as my paper is most written over. Write sure. Give my respects to all friends. Direct to Capt. D[avid] B. Morris, Wash[ington] Infantry, Company A, 13th Regiment.

Respects to Grandmother & Aunt. Farewell, — J. B. Ruth