The following partial letter is unsigned and though I can’t be certain of his identify, I suspect he was a member of the 85th New York Infantry, possibly from Rushford, Allegany county, New York. The 85th New York was known to be camped at Fort Warren in December 1861 and Charley Merrill of the 64th New York Infantry (mentioned in the letter) was from Rushford so he would have been known locally to the correspondents.

Transcription

Camp Warren [Meridian Hill]
Washington D. C.
December 21, 1861

Dear Friend Ed,

I am happy to say that I received your letter last night and was very glad to hear that you are quite well and I hope that you had a good time with the girls but I am sorry to say that I don’t have much chance to have any fun with the girls here for I can’t get out. I had a pass last Monday for two days but Hank Merrill was out here with Otis Kingsbury and he had to go back on Sunday but I got them to stay till Monday and then I went back with them. They are about 12 miles from Washington at Upton’s Hill, two miles from Fall’s Church so we started off on Monday about 10 o’clock and walked to the Capitol and went and looked around that but could not stay kone but it is a very nice place. So we took the ferry across the Potomac and walked to the barracks up there. They are very comfortable there. They are in the woods, have lots of shooting. They can go and practice any time they want. They have got Enfield Rifles and shoot right to the mark. We went out and shot for a little while. I shot 22 rounds at a slab of 15 rods and hit every time and I made some good shots at the mark.

Alson Durgey is in the hospital at Fall’s Church but he is getting all right. He is coming over to the 64th Regiment—that is the regiment that John Merrill is in and they are at Camp Shephard. I would have liked it if you could have been with us. It was quite a sight to see the soldiers and the rifle pits and batteries. You can see them in every direction but they all belong to our men. They have slashed thousands of acres of timber land. It is small scrubby stuff recent growth of pine and cedar and but very little hard wood among it. They have torn [down]and burnt almost every building round that part of the country but that is good for trade but I must tell you how I served the guards. They search almost every rock that crosses the river for whiskey but I had a pint along with me so I put it in my overcoat pocket and put my gloves on top and then when I came up to the guard, we had to show our pass and I left my overcoat blouse open so he just looked at me and let me pass and the other boys so we was all right. But we had to show our pass to the patrols. There was a squad of cavalry about 20 and they have to stop people and see their pass.

A soldier can’t go about Washington without a pass and so you see that we have not got much chance to run around but after we got by them, we met a regiment of cavalry that was returning from a foraging party. They have been out to Fairfax Court House and had found one man there and he was drunk and very easy and they took him out and shot him but they brought mack 27 baggage wagons full of corn and hay and some cattle but my pass was dated from the 16th to the 17th but I wanted to stay longer so I turned the 7 into a 9 and that made it the 19th so I had a good stay and the guards could not tell the difference and Captain did not say anything so I had it all right.

Now Ed, about Zib Wheeler, I don’t think that it will pay to see him for I have not got any chance to go to town to do anything so you can tell him to kiss your ass for me. [rest of letter missing]