The following letter was written by Charles H. Sherwood of Co. M, 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry (64th Pennsylvania Volunteers) who enlisted on 30 October 1861 and died at Andersonville Prison on 7 June 1864 (Grave 2121). Charles H Sherwood, was born about 1842, to Zelotus and Abagail Sherwood. Charles entered the service with friends from Carbondale, Luzerne (Lackawana) County, Pennsylvania. Sgt. Sherwood was present at many Civil War battles. He fought at Gettysburg and his name is engraved on the Pennsylvania Memorial there. Sgt. Sherwood was captured October 12, 1863, at White Sulphur Springs,Virginia, along with 300 other Union troops from the Pennsylvania Fourth and Thirteenth Cavalry. Initially, he was probably imprisoned at Belle Island, Richmond, Virginia, and later transferred to Andersonville, Georgia, about March 1864. He died that June of dysentery. Five of Charles’s Carbondale enlistee friends also died at Andersonville.

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Camp Campbell
Washington D. C.
February 21, 1862

Dear Cory,

Your letter arrived at the seat of war not long since. I was glad to hear from you but would a little rather see you. I am quite well. I will not say “we” for there is quite a number sick. We are at the same old post & I expect to live and die here but perhaps something may turn up that will send us on the other side of Jordan. I am getting tired of staying here but if they would send us some other place, it would please me very much.

Last Sunday I was over to the 52nd [Pennsylvania] Regiment. Saw William James, John Swartz, David Moses, and all the rest of the Carbondale boy hoys. They are all well. Bill James say down in a large pan of water and got hissitting machine all wet. but he soon got dry. And from this I went up to the 7th Pennsylvania—Col. Rush’s Lancers—and saw George Swartz for the first time. It was the first that I knew he was there. I had a jolly bully [time]. Oh! but I had the visit. They talk of coming over to see me this Sunday evening. Well, I am so nervous that I cannot write. Do you think you can read this? Hey! Say tickle Brooks. But hain’t I glad that the little girls only three years old invites you to go sleigh riding. That’s what you get by talking about mud. Bully for the baby and you are one of them. Good.

We do not have so much mud as we used to for we have to makebread of it. So you see it will soon be all gone. Well, [ ] if you will please tell me who sent me the fancy valentine, I will send them one of the greatest letters you ever saw that is a good one. So tell me in your next. Did any of the rest get any or not?

Well, there is nothing to write so I will have to close. Tell Lib that E[dgar] F. Cramer is desirous of a wife and would like to have her. I am going to get a secesh woman and a black one at that. Won’t you have the nice sister in law?

No more. Write soon. From a scalawag, Charles Taylor Henry Peter John Sherwood

I will write Joe’s letter Sunday.