The following letter was written by Sgt. Joseph Henry Saunders (1825-1862) of Albion, Dane county, Wisconsin who enlisted in Co. H. 1st Wisconsin Cavalry on 12 October 1861 and died of disease on 6 October 1862 in a hospital at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The surgeon reported his cause of death due to “fever, diarrhea, and chills.” Joseph was buried in Missouri but there is a cenotaph to his memory near the graves of his parents in the Evergreen Cemetery at Albion. Joseph’s parents were Jesse Saunders (1798-1888) and Esther Stillman Coon (1800-1874) who came to Wisconsin from New York State in 1841 when Joseph was 15 years old.
Joseph was married in December 1847 in Dane county to Henrietta L. Carpenter. They had one daughter, Esther M. Saunders, born in March 1850. After Joseph’s death, Henrietta remarried in 1865 to Ephraim Palmer and resided in Fulton, Rock county, Wisconsin.
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Co. H, 1st Wisconsin Cavalry
Camp Harvey 1
Kenosha, Wisconsin
February 8th 1862
Dear Wife and Daughter,
I have been waiting now about a week for a letter from you. I have not received one from you since the one that [ ] wrote and sent in yours. That is the only one I have received since I came back to camp. I hope this will find you in good health for it leaves me in very good health although I am suffering from a bad cold that I took a few days ago.
Day before yesterday I was confined to my tent but have been able to attend to my duties since. I do not know whether I wrote to you about the Cap[tain L. M. B. Smith] being in Chicago. He has been there since one week ago today. He went there to recruit for his company as there was a regiment disbanded. He came back yesterday but has gone back today and expects to come back tomorrow with 25 or 30 men. If he does, we shall have our company full. We do not know whether we are going away from here or not yet as the Colonel has not got back yet.
There is nothing now going on here. Yesterday we had a street drill. We marched up through the town to the depot dressed in our uniforms with the commissioned officers mounted on horse back. I tell you, it was a splendid sight. Oh how I wish you and sis could have been here to have seen it. I had command of a platoon of sixteen men yesterday. In the forenoon I had command of a platoon of noncommissoned officers in the Noncommissoned Officers Class. I tell you, I am pretty busy now-a-days. Therefore, I have to write in the evening or not at all.
I hope you are doctoring for your cough. I want you to write to me often about it for I am very anxious [to] know how you are getting along.
I have not got my pay yet nor do I expect it until the Colonel gets back. Then we shall get our pay and either be sent off or be disbanded and sent home. There is a good many horses sick now in our stables. There has two or three that have died since I came back to camp. They are generally sick with the inflammation of the lungs.
I want you should write often for it is a great consolation to hear from home. I must close for it is getting. about time for the roll call and I have it to do. So good night. From your affectionate husband, — J. H. Saunders
1 Camp Harvey was the campsite of the First Wisconsin Cavalry and was located in Green Ridge Cemetery, south of Kenosha near Lake Michigan. A boulder now marks the spot having been sited by Frank H. Lyman in 1917. “On Sunday morning, November 24, 1861, the First Regiment Wisconsin Cavalry arrived in Kenosha; they came by train and arrived about 6 in the morning, tired, hungry, and cold. Many citizens were waiting to receive them; a breakfast was prepared at the Durkee House. Approximately 800 soldiers settled at Camp Harvey, which was located on the sand ridge just south of the cemetery grounds.” [See Camp Harvey Boulder]
Spared & Shared 23 