23rd Connecticut Infantry | Spared & Shared 23

*Frederick L. Allen of Co. A, 23rd Connecticut Infantry (Photo Sleuth)*

The following partial letter was written by a soldier in Co. C, 23rd Connecticut Infantry. There is no accompanying envelope nor second sheet with the author’s signature to help us further in his identification though he seems to refer to himself in the 3rd person at times as “Tom.” If his name was Thomas, there were only three in the regiment named Thomas—Thomas Gavon, Thomas Colopy, and Thomas Milnes. If I were to guess his age based on the content, I should think he was about twenty or less.

The letter provides us with a good description of the voyage to Louisiana from New York City aboard the Che Kiang steamer, and of the regiment’s occupation of Brashear City.

Transcription

Camp Brashear City
23rd Regiment, Co. C
January 31, 1863

Friends Cate, Sarah and Mary,

As I have not much to do this morning, I thought I would try and write a few lines to you to let you know that I am still in the land of the living. My health is very good and has been ever since you saw me. I have not lost a day. J__’s health has been good too. I should have written before but we have had a great deal of guard duty to do and drilling and we have moved so often that I could not get time to do my washing hardly. I have enjoyed myself better than I expected and I like soldiering far better than I thought I should but a soldier’s life is a hard life at last. But we are laboring for a good cause and we ought not to get tired of doing good although my help is but little. But I can shoot as many rebels as anybody if I get the chance. I have not had a chance yet but no doubt but I shall have as many shots as I shall want. I came down here to fight so I cannot find any fault if I do have a little to do.

Now girls, I must tell you where we are and where we have been. We are at Brashear City on the shore of Berwick’s Bay. That is about all I can tell about where we are. It is seventy-five miles from New Orleans. We are at the principal depot of the New Orleans, Opelousas, Great Western Railroad. It is a very nice place. It has been a business place once but now there is nothing going on but war business. There is very nice plantations here—some of the finest places I ever saw. The door yards and gardens are full of orange and lemon and fig trees and beautiful flowers and everything that is nice. But now the farmer inhabitants have forsaken their fine homes and joined the rebel army and now the houses and stores and hotels and every building is used for the purpose of war. We are in a nice building. It has formerly been a hotel. Some are in stores, some in dwelling houses.

It is a fine country down here. The weather is warm. I am afraid it will be most too warm next summer but it is very nice now. It is as healthy a place here as there is in the state (Louisiana).

After we left New York, the first place we landed was at Ship Island. We did not tarry there long. We stayed there five days. I did not like the look of that place. I went to a funeral while I was there. There is over five hundred buried there. It was a hard sight. The island is ten miles long, one wide. It is nothing but a pile of sand. I must tell you the name of the boat we came on. It was the Che-Kiang. I suppose you have read about the gale of wind we had while on our way here, or rather on our way to Ship Island. I thought that Tom would never see old Connecticut again. If you have Frank Leslie’s paper of this month, I believe you will see a picture of the Che-Kiang after a rebel schooner, as they call it, had run in contact with her. I believe it was along the coast of Florida. We saw a small schooner ahead of us. Our vessel gave them a signal to get out of her way but the schooner did not get out of the way and the schooner came in collision with the Che-Kiang and stove two small hopes in her midship. We did not know whether it was a rebel schooner or what it was. I got tired of being on the water. It was the hardest time Tom ever had. It made him think of home.

*The Ship Che-Kiang collides with a Confederate schooner off the Florida Reef resulting in the sinking of the schooner.*

From Ship Island we come to Camp Parapet six miles up the river from New Orleans. That place was a hard looking place to me. It was in one of the old Louisiana swamps, I call it. From there we came here. Next Monday it will be three weeks since we came here. I hope we shall stay here the remainder of our time but that is unknown to us how long we shall stay here. Night before last we was called out after we had got to bed and nicely asleep. We were called to fall in as quick as possible. You better believe we scrambled out somewhat lively. Tom expected to have some fighting to do but we did not. After we had got in line of battle, the Adjutant came in front and he said, “Attention Battalion.” Then he said, “Fellow soldiers. I am happy to see you fall in so willingly and with such promptness.” He said, “No doubt but what there is danger but by the Colonel’s orders the captains can take their companies to their quarters but be ready to fall in at any time.” [2nd sheet of letter is missing]

I could not find an image of Starr but here is a cdv of Joseph Dobbs Bishop of Danbury who served as chief musician in 23rd Connecticut. Bishop died of disease returning home from his enlistment (Western Conn. State University Archives)

This letter was written by Starr L. Booth (1842-Aft1920), the son of Charles Booth (1802-Aft1860) and Eliza Beardsley (1808-Aft1860 of Newtown, Fairfield county, Connecticut. Starr datelined his letter from Camp Parapet near New Orleans on 29 December 1862 while serving in the Co. C, 23rd Connecticut Infantry. Despite contending that he would not serve “Uncle Sam” beyond his 9 month enlistment in the 23rd, records indicate that he subsequently served in Co. M, 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery from 5 September 1864 to 12 June 1865. They also indicate that he was wounded on 6 February 1865 in the fighting at Hatcher’s Run, Virginia.

In the 1875 Rhode Island State Census, Starr was enumerated as a boarder with his wife Annie (1840-1945) and 7 year-old daughter Alice in Bristol where he labored as a “Rubber worker.” Later in life he worked as a florist and gardner.

To read other letters I have transcribed by members of the 23rd Connecticut Infantry and posted on Spared & Shared, see:
Abel M. Wheeler, Co. B, 23rd Connecticut (1 Letter)
James Fillow Jelliff, Co. E, 23rd Connecticut (2 Letters)
Edwin Benedict, Co. G, 23rd Connecticut (1 Letter)
George Leander Hotchkiss, Co. H, 23rd Connecticut (1 Letter)
Frederic C. Barnum, Co. K, 23rd Connecticut (1 Letter)

Transcription

Camp Parapet
23rd [Connecticut] Regiment, Co. C, USA
New Orleans, 29 December 1862

Miss Nettie,

As I have a few leisure moments I thought the best way for me to improve them would be to write you a few lines although I have not received any answer from those that I wrote you while on Camp Buckingham. I did not write but a few lines on account of having marching orders while writing them.

The 23rd is now encamped about three miles above the City of New Orleans. We left Camp Buckingham the 4th. It being pleasant, we set sail for Ship Island and sailed along nice until the 7th when we met with a severe gale which came very near capsizing our boat. After sailing nine days, we arrived at Ship Island. We stayed there three days and then started for this place.

I must say this is the pleasantest place that I ever was in. It is as warm here now as it is North in July. We have all kinds of fruit here such as orange, lemons, oranges, pineapples, and various other kinds. Oranges are as plenty here as apples are north. The boys go out and pick all they wish for. They make themselves at home whenever they go out. It looks hard to see the property that is destroyed here. There is hundreds of houses that no one lives in and some of them are the most splendid houses that I ever saw. Those that lived in them are now in the Southern army. They must have thought they were in the right to have left them in the way they did.

I am in hopes they will make some treaty for peace. As for me, I am getting tired of soldiering in it and for this reason: we do not have enough to eat and drink and that we do have is not fit to eat. I am waiting with patience to have my nine months come to a close and then I think I close my work for Uncle Sam.

I am very anxious to hear from the New Haven folks as I have not heard from any of them since I left there. Give my love to Aggy and Fanny and all the rest. As I have no more time and the mail is going out, I shall close by remaining your friends, — Starr L. Booth