The following letter was written by Scott Winfield Harrington (1842-1909), a native of Pennsylvania, who came to Sheboygan county, Wisconsin in the early 1850s with his parents. In the fall of 1861, he enlisted in Co. A, 1st Wisconsin Cavalry but after 15 months of campaigning in Missouri, he became too ill to carry on and he was discharged. Once home and having fully recovered, he again enlisted in the 17th Illinois Cavalry, rising in rank from sergeant to Captain of Co. A. He mustered out of the 17th Illinois Cavalry on 2 October 1865.

After leaving the service at war’s end, he married Sarah Asenath Cooper (1846-1915) in Ozaukee and eventually settled in Sioux City, Iowa, where he became a merchant and grain dealer.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Camp Fremont
Ripon, Wisconsin
October 4th 1861

Friend Sidney,

I take this opportunity to write you a few lines to let you know how I get along and where I am and what I am doing. In the first place I am very well in body but not very well in mind. I enlisted in the First Battalion of Wisconsin Cavalry the 14th day of August ’61 and have not got my uniform yet, so that is the reason I am not very well in mind. But I know in this terrible time the government cannot get everything in a moment so I shall have to be patient and if anyone does not want patience to join the army now, I do not know where or when he does want patience.

This [regiment] was first started for a Battalion of 4 hundred men but since then the Colonel has been ordered to raise it to a regiment of twelve hundred men. There is about seven hundred in camp now. We will not be likely to leave the state under about two months for we cannot get our arms under that time. We shall have plenty of time to train our horses and that is just what we need. We have got in our tents now and it is very pleasant. We were quartered in a college building until we got our tents.

I have not been home since I enlisted and I suppose my folks will give me a nice talking for enlisting, but I think that I am doing my duty to my God and my Country, and if I have to go against my parents wishes, I think that I am doing right. If I get killed on the battlefield, I have no wife and children to mourn for me as a great many of the soldiers have, but still I leave a mother that thinks just as much of me as any wife does of hers husband and mother is the only one that I regret to leave. To be sure, it is not a very pleasant feeling to think that I am going off and leave my young friends, perhaps never to see them more in this world. But it is not such a feeling as it is to leave mother.

I have nothing more to write of any consequence (and what I have wrote I do not know as is of much consequence). There is no excitement here now at all. You must excuse this poor writing and spelling for my writing table is a hand trunk turned down on the side and my chair is my blanket laid on the ground, so you may judge how pleasant writing it is. Give my respects to all enquiring friends. Please write soon and oblige your ever true friend, — Scott H. Harrington

P. S. Camp Co. A, Ripon, Wis