Warren Smith Leslie was born on 14 December 1841, the oldest son of Cyrus Leslie (1812-1848) and Elvira Smith (1809-1894). Following his father’s death in 1848, he was placed in the home of a farmer in Plymouth, Vermont, and remained involved in agriculture throughout his life. He served in Co. I of the 2nd Vermont Infantry during the Civil War, enlisting in 1861. He was honorably discharged in mid-February 1863 after many months in the hospital. His military records indicate he received a gunshot wound to his left chest though it doesn’t say when. Presumably it occurred in the Peninsula Campaign. He married Alice D. Newman (1847-1914) of Woodstock, Vermont, in 1866 and the couple moved to Kansas. He died in Osawatomie, Kansas, on 16 December 1913.

In this letter to his mother, Warren expresses disenchantment with the war and its officers from his bed in the Haddington General Hospital at Philadelphia.

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

Haddington Hospital [Philadelphia, Pa.]
December 25th 1862

Dear Mother,

I received two letters from you and one from Henry yesterday. I was glad to hear from all of you once more. I don’t know as I am any better than I was when I wrote before and I have got so far from Washington now that I don’t know as I can get my discharge or a furlough either but I don’t know but they will send me to a hospital in Vermont by and by. I have got so that I don’t care much which way the world goes. They have kept me six months without pay and there isn’t any prospects of getting it for six to come.

I have written to the Captain for my Descriptive List so that I could draw my money and some clothes but he hadn’t never answered it nor sent the list either. The officers if our army are nothing but a set of rascals and thieves. They are making money out of it and that is all they care for. The rebels are bad enough but if they are traitors, they are honest men. What the most of our officers are and unless we have different leaders, the rebellion never will be put down. Now you see if my words don’t prove true. I have spoiled my health and constitution fighting for these money eaters but if I live to get out of this, they won’t catch me again.

You wrote that Warren Walker has got home. I never knew before that he had enlisted. What regiment was he in? An Iowa [regiment], I suppose, for I believe that is where he was when the war broke out. I must close for it is growing dark. Give my respects to all the brothers and sisters and to grandfather’s folks.

Yours respectfully, — Warren S. Leslie