This letter was written by Thomas H. Guinnip (1839-1873) who was 22 years year old when he enlisted on 18 May 1861 at Addison to serve two years as private in Co. E, 34th New York Infantry. He mustered out with the company on 30 June 1863, at Albany, N. Y. He was sick and absent from the regiment most of the fall of 1862 and detailed in the discharge office at Washington D. C. in January 1863.

The 34th New York Infantry mustered into the U. S. service at Albany June 15, 1861, for two years. It left the state for Washington on July 3; was quartered at Kalorama heights until July 28, when it moved to Seneca mills and was there assigned to Gen. Stone’s brigade. The regiment moved to Edwards ferry on Oct. 21, to Poolesville, Md., Oct. 23, and there established Camp McClellan, which was occupied until Feb. 24, 1862, when orders were received to move to Harper’s Ferry.

Thomas was the son of Parley Guinnip (18xx-1857) and Eliza M. Smith (1816-1876) of Addison, Steuben county, New York.

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

U. S. General Hospital
December 11, 1862

My dear Mother, Brother & Sisters,

I take great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your very kind letters which come to hand this beautiful Thursday morning; also which was perused over & over with the deepest interest & with the greatest pleasure. My health is quite good at present and I am in very good sprits. Alonzo Curtis has just left for Parole Camp (which is two miles distant from here). He arrived here last night from home and came here to see me today. He looks tough and hearty. He says that he feels well (with the exception of a swollen face which was caused by taking cold and settling in his right cheek, and which is quite painful to him). Samuel Kimball left here last Monday bound for home. Perhaps is at home before this time. You can see Sam and he will tell you all about how I am getting along & what I am about, &c.

Then Amelia! you are attending dancing school this winter and doubtless you anticipate great pleasure of becoming a good & easy dancer. I think that your school is slimly represented in the shape of male attendance. As you state that there is double the number of girls to that of the boys, without doubt the young ladies have to escort one another home. From the fact that there is such a great deficiency of young men left at home, that the girls have to look out for A No. 1, and court their own shadows, &c.

For a few days past the weather here has been quite cold & tedious (I doubt much if you have at the North experienced any colder or more disagreeable weather than we have experienced here for five or six days), for the past three days the weather has been quite mild, and today it appears like spring.

Girls! I suppose that you are looking forth in the future at the expected moment when the elements (or in other words water) of the beautiful Canisteo River shall become congealed. Then without doubt, you will enjoy yourselves to a pretty good advantage skating and maneuvering on the ice. May your expected pleasures & future [ ] be crowded with every earthly felicity. and with a great deal of success.

Horatio, I will send (as soon as I get my pay) some money to buy you a pair of skates. How did my skates come to be destroyed! they was good & whole when I saw them last. Horatio, Ma says you call her a damn fool, a thing and a Devil, &c. I consider it my duty as a senior brother to give you some advice (which I have already done) and I hope that you will profit by the same, for youg people know but little of the world, and how they can act with the best advantage. It grieves me to address you upon a subject so painful, but your disobedience and wild, reckless conduct towards your Mother (your only parent here on earth) compels me to do so. Your unworthy conduct towards your mother has been a source of much vexation and anxiety to her. You are rude and unfeeling to a certain extent. You have forfeited the confidence and respect that you once had for your dear mother. Is it possible that you do not regard her admonitions; one, who is your best friend; and bestows upon you so many facilities and granted you so many privileges. I little thought that you would ever repay her with such ingratitude and wicked acts in which you have so frequently been guilty of. I do hope that you wil try and be a better boy. Ask your mother’s forgiveness & repent for the wrong doings which you have been guilty of. Be more penitent in the future for it will afford you an opportunity to make amens and retrieve the past. Having left the paternal roof myself and gone away to fight the battles of my country, of course it is my duty to entice & persuade you to do right. I think it incumbent upon me to give you a little advice, such as I am confident of giving from my own observation and experience. The advice I have already given you and I hope that you will abide by the same for it will be for your own interest. Do not think hard of me for the advice which I have given you, or the reproval for it is for your own and personal good, and you will find it out so. I know that I have never set a very good and wise example to you, but now I repeat for the same, so do not follow my example but likewise repent yourself and do better hereafter. The next time that I hear from home, I am in hope to hear that you are a good boy. So may it be.

I have not received my pay yet but when I do. I will send ma some money as soon as possible. I was thinking I wrote and told you that William Hance was dead, at least I meant to, for I heard of it before you did. I received a letter from friend Dan Hollis today. It was a good letter. He said that he has the horse . And Mat told him that he must make it all right with me. Of course it is all right as far as I am concerned. I think he paid well for the use of the horse, according to Horatio’s tell.

I am very glad to learn you have such an excellent school. I was not at all surprised to hear that Rev. Judson made a good teacher for I always supposed he would make an excellent teacher. It is my desire to& greatest wish that you (I mean Horatio and the girls) should attend the school and be studious and attentive to your studies. Then when you get older, you will never repent it. A person can never study too much, or get too good an education.

Really, I think Addison is doing a big business in the line of matrimony. I should think all the young ladies of Addison would go half crazy at the very thought or idea of honest Byron’s committing matrimony, for I understand that the girls were all after him, and what were not after him in love were after him with broom sticks and mob sticks. Yes, Byron will make an interesting husband. I wonder if he is well matched for a companion. If they are well matched, they will fetch a larger price in marketm for good animals fetch a god price now in the city. But enough of htis nonsense. I hope that Byron’s matrimonial experience will be frequented with every earthly blessing and I congratulate him in his good success of his late marriage. But for all, I do think he was lucky in getting someone to have him, for he has been trying for a great while to get married and has at last made it out. Really, they must be an interesting couple, don’t you all think so?

We have just received the following dispatch from the telegraph that Gen. Burnside has just burnt Fredericksburg. For my part, I am glad of it. They might have surrendered the city to Burnside and it would have been saved. Our army has again advanced and thus far seems to meet with complete success and I hope we shall have no more retrograde movements for the sooner the rebellion is put down, so much the better it will be for the country. It makes no odds how the rebellion is ended if it is only done in due and proper season. For the present, I cannot indulge you with an epitome of certain facts concerning the army, &c. but will postpone them to some future time. I hope that you will not let anyone see this letter. Burn it up as soon as it is read. Now Horatio & girls, when you receive this letter, please sit down and answer it. Do not wait for your Ma to write for you know that she does not write much and consequently it is quite a task for her to write. Remember me to all enquiring friends, hoping this may find you all in the enjoyment of health, happiness and prosperity. I subscribe myself your affectionate, but unfortunate son and brother, — T H. Guinnip