U. S. Capitol | Spared & Shared 23

These two letters were written by Charles Edward Ballou (1843-1938) of Chepachet, Providence, Rhode Island. He was the son of Sabin A. Ballou (1818-1848) and Mary Ann Arnold (1821-1898). Charles and his brother, Henry Warren Ballou, enlisted in Co. F, 9th Rhode Island Infantry—a regiment that was raised in May 1862 for three months service to garrison the Washington D. C. forts during McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. Company “A” was at Fort Greble, “B” at Fort Meigs, “C” at Fort Ricketts, “D” at Fort Snyder, “E” and “K” at Fort Baker, “F” at Fort Carroll, “G” at Fort Dupont, “H” at Fort Wagner, “I” at Fort Stanton and “L” at Fort Davis. Mustered out September 2, 1862. Charles wrote the letter to his sister Mary Elizabeth Ballou (1845-1927).

Letter 1

Camp Frieze [Tennallytown, D. C.]
June 18, 1862

Dear Sister,

I was very glad to hear from you. I received your letter on the 18th and you said something about being homesick. I am well and have not thought anything about being home sick. Tell mother I am well and have gained nine pounds since I came out here. Tell her I am fatting up on stinking meat.

Yesterday, Co. B, 10th Regiment, went out and captured a small cannon about two miles from here. They broke in a barn. The man they took it from is a rebel. He was pretty mad but couldn’t help himself. Henry is well. He received your letter on the 18th. My company was on police duty today. Just as quick as I got your letter, I went to my tent and wrote this one. Henry and I are both in one tent. Tell mother if she sends a box, not to send a tea pot nor any tea. Tell her to send some plain cakes and some mine pies if she can. Tell her I had a chance to be a corporal but I wouldn’t take it.

A soldier’s life is a lazy one. I shall be so lazy when I get home that I can’t do anything. Tell mother that Josh Tibbets found a check of 15 dollars and signed his name to it. The Colonel of our regiment arrested him today and put him in the guardhouse. I heard this afternoon he was a going to be imprisoned. Tell mother to not say anything about it.

We have good living. We have to get up every morning at half past four. We have to drill an hour before breakfast. It’s tough but I am getting use to it. There are all Yanks but two in our tent. I heard they was getting up another regiment in Rhode Island. Tell Daniel Howland he ought ot be out here to kiss some of the yellow girls. Tell mother I will send my money home just as quick as I get it. Tell her she knows about what to send.

Henry said that mince pies wouldn’t keep. And tell her I would like to have some of her white bread. I love to hear from home. Write soon. I would write more if I could spell my words good. Give my love to all. So goodbye.

From your brother, — Charles E. Ballou

I am well. Give my love to all inquirers. — Henry W. Ballou, June the 18th. I would like to have you write plainer when you write.

Don’t say anything about Josh Tibbets. Get Sam to direct some envelopes and send to me.

Letter 2

Fort Carroll [Washington D. C.]
July 20, 1862

Dear Sister,

I now take my pen in hand to write you a few lines. I am well and hope this letter will find you the same. I hope so any[way].

Well, Mary, I went up to Washington yesterday and I saw more than I expect to see again. When we went into the Capitol, we went in one door and we walked about half an hour and fetched up right where we started from. So we started again and went upstairs and I tell you, they was stairs too. We saw some paintings of Generals Washington, and Jackson, and Scott, and all of the great generals. Every painting was as large as the side of a house. So we went up some more stairs. These stairs they called the winding stairs. We had to go right round and round. We went way up into the top [where] we could see all over Washington. All I could see when we was going upstairs was the [graffiti] names of the soldiers. There was four of us went together so we stopped and wrote our names on the plastering. So you see my name is [in] the Capitol. ¹

All the bread we have is baked there. They bake 60 loaves to a time. We could see about twenty miles out of the Capitol. I can’t think of all I see there. Well, we went round the park there. We saw some fish in places. I don’t know what they call them.

Washington is next to the nastiest city I have seen and that is Alexandria. It stinks enough there to knock a man down. Old dead horses lays all over the city. ² All the buildings in Washington that belong to the government is splendid ones, but about one half of them are old shanties.

Well, we went from the Capitol down to the Navy Yard [where] we saw some marines. They were all dressed in white. They had on white gloves. They looked as slick as a pin. I saw the gunboat Teazer ³ that was captured from the rebels week before last. There I [also saw that cannon that busted up James River—the one that killed so many. I saw all the guns that was captured down to Norfolk. There was about 200 of them. I see the guns that was on board of the Merrimack. They were all spiked but two or three. I saw four cannons that was bought [at] the time Louisiana was bought over 60 years ago. They were about 16 feet long. They came from France. They [were] some that Bonaparte had a long time ago.

¹ It isn’t clear from what vantage point the author of this letter was able to view the city as the top of the new US Capitol dome was not yet fully completed. It may have been to the very top where workmen were still erecting the Tholos. The Statue of Freedom was not placed at the very top until December 1863.

2 Being a major supply hub to the Union army, there was a large influx of cavalry mounts, artillery horses, and supply mules in the Quartermaster corrals. As temperatures soared in the summer of 1862, the volume of carcasses outpaced the city’s ability to burn or bury them.

³ The CSS Teaser was an armed tugboat that acted as a tender for the CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads. The 12-pound rifled gun (pictured below) that she carried is now in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum.

*Edward Williams of Co. H wearing the Zouave uniform of the 10th Rhode Island Infantry* *(LOC)*.

This letter was written by William Frederick (“Fred”) Atwood (1845-1862), a corporal serving in his company. Fred was the 17 year-old son of William and Emeline Atwood, a recent graduate of the Providence high school. Fred was described by his comrades as having a “genial temperament and generous disposition, which drew around him a circle of personal friends” who mourned his loss when he died on 29 June 1862 at the Soldier Retreat in Washington D. C.

The 10th Rhode Island regiment was mustered into Federal service for three months in the summer of 1862. It was sworn in at Providence on May 26, 1862 and then moved to Washington, D. C. from May 27 to 29 where it was attached to Sturgis’ Command as part of the Military District of Washington. It saw duty at Camp Frieze, Tennallytown until June 26. With Sturgis, the regiment marched across the Potomac into Virginia, but returned to Washington when Jackson’s threat to the city subsided.

After a few days, on Monday morning, June 30, the 10th was detached from Sturgis’ troops and ordered to relieve the 59th New York in the seven forts and three batteries it had been occupying. These defenses of Washington were north and west of the city.

Company A was sent to Fort Franklin. This position guarded the Baltimore and Ohio Canal, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and the Washington Aqueduct—the new water supply for the city. the U. S. Army Engineers had designed Fort Franklin to protect the city’s receiving reservoir (as conveyed by the Aqueduct) as well as the Potomac river shoreline.

Fred’s death and burial was described by Lt. Joseph L. Bennett in a letter he wrote to Fred’s father on 2 July 1862. See—1862: Joseph Langford Bennett to William Atwood.

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

Tenleytown
June 15th 1862

I suppose you may think I am dead or sick because I have not written before but I am here alive and well, and should have written much sooner but for 1 thing. We did not get our full uniform when we left the City of Providence. I came off looking more like an Irishman than anything else. We expected to get it all when we arrived in Washington, and every day since it has been promised to us. It was that I was waiting for so I send you my picture. I have waited so long that I thought I would write to you and I will send you my likeness when I can get it.

I like soldiering as well as I expected. The greatest evil is dirt. I keep as clean as possible but camp life is a dirty life. I suppose you of course received my letter the day before we started. I wrote it in a very great hurry as we had orders to start that night. I should have liked very much indeed to have seen you but I do not suppose it was possible I could.

We started from Providence about 5 o’clock Tuesday p.m., arrived in Groton t 10 p.m., received rations which consisted of salt junk [salted beef] and hard bread. Took the Plymouth Rock for New York, arrived there about 5 a.m. I saw the Great Eastern [steamship] while there. We travelled all that day and night and arrived in Philadelphia about 3 p.m. Thursday. We stopped there till 9 and then started for Baltimore where we arrived about 5 o’clock a.m. Friday. We started at 3 p.m. for Washington, stayed there one night, and next day marched to this place, distant about 7 miles. The march out here was very warm. The dust was so heavy it was difficult to breathe. Two hours rain made mud ankle deep.

I went into Washington the other day to see the sights. I wish you and I could stop there a week and go around as much as we liked. The Capitol is the largest and most splendid building I ever had any idea of. I went about all over it the other day. The Senate and House of Representatives was is session. I went into both [chambers]. The Senate is the most splendid room I ever saw. I also went into the Patent Office, Among the millions of things, the most interesting to me was the articles which belonged to [General] Washington of which there were a great many. I saw a coat vest and knee breeches which he wore when he resigned his commission at Annapolis. His iron Treasure box, sword, hall lantern, chairs, tent poles, and a great many other things were there. I was very much disappointed in the machines I saw there. The models of some (a great many too) I should not think would be put there—they were made so cheap and common. But there was enough of interest in te room to interest me a month if I could only get there. I went into the reception room of the White House. It is furnished splendidly. There are some of the handsomest buildings in Washington I ever saw.

Many other collections soon found their way to the Model Hall in the Patent Office. The somewhat random assortment of objects included “Historical Relics,” such as the original Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin’s printing press, and George Washington’s uniform. The display was simultaneously insular and expansionist, dedicated to national history while expressing global aspirations.

We have but very little sickness out here. There is but one man at present in the hospital from my company. I am in as good heath as I ever was. I have had but one attack of dysentery but I got over it in a day. I guess about every man in the company has been touched with it. The water they say brings it on. While we were in Washington, we were fed on bread, coffee strong without milk, and junk so salty you could hardly keep it in your mouth. The junk made me dry and I drank considerable of the spring water there. It went through me like Croton oil but I was not troubled but once.

We were sworn into service last Monday for three months from the 26th of May (three weeks tomorrow). How are things with you in Taunton and Berkley. I want you to write me a good long letter when you get this and let me know all the news, &c. We will have to give up the good times we were going to have for the present, but if I get back at the end of the three months, we will make up for the lost time. I asked Mr. Eddy if there would be any doubt about my getting my place again. He told me not to be uneasy about that for he would not lose me for anything. He had a letter from Mr. Armington a day or two before I came away in which Mr. A. said he was very glad I was going to stay and if I wanted to go to a trade when he got back, he would do all in his power to get me a good place. I expect Mr. Armington will get home in a week or so, I guess he will be rather surprised to find me off as he will not get any news of it till hr gets here. Everybody has come out of Providence so I guess it is very lonesome there. One fellow in camp here had a letter from a fellow in Providence in which he said it was Sunday there every day. He said he never saw it so dull.

When you write to me, direct your letters to Co. A, 10th Regiment R. I. Vols., Washington D. C.,

Goodbye Aunt Sarah. Write me a long letter soon. Your affectionate nephew, — W. F. Atwood