The following letter was written by Earl “Byron” Pierce (1842-1862), the son of Arnold Y. Pierce (1815-1891) and Wealthy Austin (1819-1902) of North East, Erie county, Pennsylvania. He wrote the letter to his siblings, Lucina Wealthy Pierce (1847-1953) and Salvador John Pierce (1844-1920).

Byron enlisted on 26 August 1862 to serve three years in Co. C, 145th Pennsylvania Volunteers. This letter was written barely over a month after his date of muster and only about ten weeks before he was killed on the battlefield at Fredericksburg on 13 December 1862. For the members of the 145th Pennsylvania, Fredericksburg was a bloody baptism of fire. Joining in the assault by the 2nd Corps, the regiment made a senseless charge against the Confederate line entrenched on Marye’s Heights that resulted in 226 casualties, nearly half of those that took the field.

My thanks to Abbey Weber Jones for providing me with a first draft of this transcript.

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

Harpers Ferry, [West Virginia]
Thursday, Oct 2, [1862]

Dear Sister,

Well, I am well this morning and I hope that you are the same. We are having a good time here. I suppose that you have hear[d] from me since I came away from there. I have not heard from there since I came away from there. I suppose that you are having good times up there. You know that we have got to a place that we can not do as we please here. We have to stay perty close here. I would like to be in North East [Erie County, Pennsylvania] about a day. I bet that I could tell something that you would not believe but you know that I cannot come home now. But I guess we will come home some time. But I would like to have you and the rest of the girls to see us here. We sit down on the ground to write and put our paper on a box or a knapsack, so you know that we can write first rate.

Yesterday Old Abe Lincoln was here to see us. He look[ed] about the same as he did when he came through North East [Erie County, Pennsylvania]. ¹

I have [to] go on drill now, so I will haft to stop till I come off from drill. I want you to write as soon as you get this letter so I can hear from home. Well, Lusina, I have gest come off from drill so I will finish my letter, but I don’t know what to write for I think of so much that I don’t know what to write first. It is very warm here in the day time, but it is as cold at night as it was in the day time. I don’t know of any news to write for you can hear more news there then we do here. I don’t think of anything else to write at present so goodbye. From a brother, — Byron E. Pierce

[to] Lusina W. Pierce

Harpers Ferry, [West Virginia]
Oct 2, 1862

Dear brother,

I suppose that you would like to have me write a line to you. The first thing that I want to tell you [is] that ought never to tell that you want to enlist for you cannot never stand it. But I can stand it [much] better. Tell the boys that I want them to write to me. I suppose that you can ten[d] the mill now so papa can go [about] as much as he pleases. I hope you can so that when I come home, that you can beat me. I have see[n] one mill since I left there.

Tell Hank Stutson that I will write to him before long. I want you to do as well as you can and be a little careful who you go with. Tell all the girls & boys that I send my love to them. So, goodbye. — Byron E Pierce

[To] Salvador Pierce

Direct your letter to  145 Rgt Penn. Vol., Washington, D. C., Hancock’s Div., Sumner’s Corps, Care [of] Capt. D[yer] Loomis

¹ About noon on Oct. 1, 1862, President Lincoln—traveling by rail from Washington—arrived at a stop across the Potomac River from Harpers Ferry, Va. He was to visit troops in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, fought two weeks earlier. The president walked into Harpers Ferry across a pontoon bridge since the bridge had been destroyed by the Confederates. See “A Hidden-In-Plain-Sight Linck to Lincoln?‘ by John Banks.