The following letter was written by William S. Leinbach (1842-1921) who served with his older brother, Daniel S. Leinbach (1841-1894) in Battery C, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery (14th Reserves). [Note: military records spell surname as Leinback but family records spell it Leinbach.] William and Daniel were the sons of Amos Leinbach (1816-1887) and Mary Ann Schrum (1821-1886) of Union county, Pennsylvania. William survived the war and married, in 1865, to Eliza Jane Dieffenderfer (1841-1923).

William’s letter of February 1865 speaks of the battlefield at Antietam and the graves seen by his brother while passing through it to Hagerstown. Battery C did not arrive on the field with their four 10-pounder Parrott rifles until after the battle but camped nearby afterward (as noted in the letter). By the time this letter was written, the Battery had been consolidated with Battery D and was bivouacked at Maryland Heights. They did not muster out until June 1865.

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

Maryland Heights
February 10, 1865

Dear Parents,

I will now drop a few lines to let you know that we are well, hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same good health. I received your letter last night and also then five dollars and was very glad to get them. I will get my pictures taken one of these days and then I will send you one. Dan, he went out for hay yesterday morning with his team. They get the hay near the line of Pennsylvania and Maryland on the other side of Sharpsburg near Hagerstown. The must go [over] a part of the battlefield of Antietam. He said he seen a good many soldiers’ graves when he passed through there and he said he seen the place where we laid near Sharpsburg when we was out before.

We have a deep snow here at present. It is about a foot deep and as cold as Greenland. I have my picture frame done now. Perhaps I will send it home after a while. I have a notion to make another one if I don’t get tired of it. It takes a long time to make one.

Let me know what William Knapp is working. I would like to see him be with us and then the draft would not hurt him but I don’t think this war will last much longer. I think next summer will make a stop to it if the Johnnies don’t come down to it before that. We was still thinking there would be peace before long but I think them black bull dogs have to make it if there will be peace and that is about the best way to make peace. Make them come down to it if they don’t want to come.

So I have not much to write at present. There is some talk of our being paid in a few days but I don’t know how true it is. Dan, he will come in with the hay today some time. He always lives good while he is out there with them old farmers but he said they got to an old Copperhead the other time and the old fellow did not like them very much when he found out that they was Union men. But Dan said he did not care for that, but he said he pitched into his sashes [?] when they took breakfast and eat about a yard of one.

I must come to a close for this time. I will send you one of my pictures in the next letter. No more at present. From your brother, — William S. Leinbeck Write soon