The following letter was written by Lt. Charles Egbert Weeks (1839-1923) of Co. B, 7th Wisconsin Infantry (part of the Iron Brigade). Charles enlisted on 11 May 1861 and was wounded on 2 June 1864 at Bethesda Church, Virginia. He mustered out of the regiment on 3 December 1864. At the time of his enlistment, Charles was residing in York, Dane county, Wisconsin. He was married in 1864 to Harriet Marshall Mortram (1840-1870).
The 7th Wisconsin fought at Bethesda Church (part of the Battle of Totopoyomoy Creek) during the Union’s Overland Campaign. Throughout May and June, 1864, the regiment suffered numerous officer and enlisted casualties, including the loss of First Lieutenant Burns Newman and other company commanders. The intense tempo of operations was so exhausting that their commander, Colonel William Robinson, resigned the following month due to being worn out and harassed by wounds.
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Columbus, Columbus County, Wisconsin October 8, 1864
Friend Brown,
Dear sir, with respect I write you a line. Your father and sister was to see me today. They say you are about to be placed in the Invalid Corps which I was sorry to learn. I started to go to Regt. yesterday but when I got to Columbus, the Dr. stopped me [and] said that I could not go just yet. However, I shall be with you in course of two or three weeks. I don’t think you are obliged to go into the Invalid Corps unless you are a mind to. I think you can have a better position than you have if the will let you go back to the Regt. If you don’t, you can then go into the Invalid Corps. I will give you a sergeant’s berth if you have to be assigned to the [ ].
Enclosed you will find a letter from the Colonel to me which please read or show, if necessary, &c.
I will write the regiment on the subject if that will help you. Also I will call and see you if possible on my return.
Respectfully yours, — C. E. Weeks, 1st Lt., Co. B, 7th Regt, Wisconsin Vet, Vols.
I could not find an image of Sgt. Crabb but here is one of Corp. Michael A. Sweetman who served him in Co. C, 114th OVI.
The following letter was written by John Melville (“Mellie”) Crabb (1842-1910), the orphaned son of John M. Crabb 91804-1859) and Amanda R. Root (1818-1848). John enlisted Co. C, 120th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI) which was later consolidated with the 114th OVI. John was a sergeant in Co. C of the 114th OVI when he wrote this letter of the fall of Fort Blakely in Alabama in April 1865.
As described in the letter, the 114th OVI made the march from Pensacola to Mobile Bay where they participated in the 9 April 1865 assault on Fort Blakely—the last major assault in the Civil War. Following the capture of Mobile, the regiment was assigned duty in Alabama and Texas before mustering out in July 1865.
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Addressed to John W. Cleland, Co. F, 111th Regt. OVI, 20th Army Corps, Kinston, N. C.
Blakely, Alabama April 17th 1865
Friend John,
Your kind letter of the 16th ult, was received yesterday with much pleasure. Since I last wrote you we have been on the move pretty much all the time. We left Pensacola, Florida, the 20th of March. After a very wearisome march through swamps and marshes and through a barren country, being compelled to live on half rations a good portion of the time, we arrived in front of Fort Blakely [on] April 2nd. General [Frederick] Steele, in command of the expedition, immediately laid siege to the fort and opened communications with Gen. Canby’s forces in front of Fort Spanish, a few miles below.
On the night of the 8th, the Johnnies evacuated the Spanish fort. Sabbath evening the 9th, we charged the enemy’s works at Blakely and carried them, capturing several thousand prisoners and 40 or 50 pieces of artillery, a large amount of ammunition and other stores. Our loss was very small. Soon after the capture of Blakely and Fort Spanish, the rebels evacuated Mobile. I think our work is about done now.
We have received the news of the capture of Richmond and the surrender of Gen. Lee and his army and other very important news. I think that the time is not far distant when we will be permitted to return home, there to enjoy the blessing of a lasting peace.
I received a letter from Charles a few days ago. Also one from his wife yesterday. He was in good health and did not complain of anything. I think that going to the army has done him a great deal of good in a political point of view.
I must close for this time. We have had no sutler with us since we left Pensacola and therefore no opportunity of procuring paper which makes it very scarce. I remain your truly, — Jno. M. Crabb
The following letter was written by Mathias Shumaker (identified as “Dias Shoemaker” on the company roster) of Co. G, 148th Pennsylvania Infantry. Mathias was drafted on 1 September 1863 in the 16th District, Chambersburg. He joined Co. G on 19 November 1863, was wounded and captured at Spotsylvania Court House on 12 May 1864,. He “died of diarrhea while in prison at Andersonville, Ga., July 10 (or 20th), 1864” according to pension records, though his wife did not learn his fate until sometime in September 1864. He was described as “a brave soldier” in the regimental history.
Mathias was married to Sophia Hosseliode (b. 1840) on 28 May 1862 in the German Reformed Church at Wellersburg, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, and they had one child, Charles Milton Shoemaker, born 6 September 1863. After Mathias’ death, Sophia took Frederick Pardike (or Pardick) as her second husband. It should be noted that there are a number of Ancestry.com entries for Mathias, most of which are incorrect. This is primarily due to the fact that there was another soldier from Pennsylvania by the name of Mathias Shoemaker (1843-1864) who served in the 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Co. H, though an unmarried sergeant, who was also taken prisoner in 1864 and starved to death at Andersonville in June 1864.
Mathias wrote the letter to his friend, Henry Martz of Wellersburg, Pennsylvania, most likely a relative of Sergt. John Martz who served in same company.
Over the years I have transcribed a number of letters by members of the 148th Pennsylvania. They include (to date) the following:
I take the pleasure of writing a few lines to you for to let you know that I am well at present, hoping you still enjoy the same. The weather is very nice here at present and we are packing up our over plus of clothing for to send to Washington.
Yesterday Old Grant reviewed our corps and now I think it will be a move before long. Day before yesterday General Hancock reviewed our division and we made a nice appearance. There is nothing going on here at present but getting ready for moving today. We are going to practice at targets.
I will let you know that I am a going to send you ten dollars in this letter and let me know whether you get it or not. If my wife needs any money, why you may give her just as much as she wants. I want you to let me know how my friends are getting along at home there. I want you to give me all the news you can and answer this as soon as you can as I have wrote to you 4 letters already and received no answer yet. Jacob Sturtz is well and hearty and Dennis Hutzel is well and hearty too.
We still hold the Johnnies on the other side of the Rapidan and we are not much afraid of them yet. I like it better here than at home. We have more fun here than at home. No more at present. Your friend, — Mathias Shumaker
Direct to Mathias Shumaker, Co. G, 148th Pa. Vols., 2nd Corps. via Washington
I will send you a present in this letter. The peach trees are in full blossom here. I looks like summer.
This letter was written by Henry Warren Ballou of Chepachet, Providence, Rhode Island. He was the son of Sabin A. Ballou (1818-1848) and Mary Ann Arnold (1821-1898). 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.
When he wrote this letter in 1864, Henry was a new recruit in the US Signal Corps of the Regular Army.
Letter 1
New Orleans, [Louisiana] July 16 [1864]
I seat myself to write to you about my long journey. We left New York July the 6th and got here the 14th. We were out of sight of land about five days. I seen a great many curious things—seen flying fish—and when we got [to the] Mississippi, going up the river I counted 44 alligators. The Mississippi is a splendid river. I never dreamt seeing such a pretty place. It is awful hot and we have poor water but I like it first rate do far. They are not half so strict here.
We expected to go to Natchez but headquarters have been moved here. This is a camp of instruction. There was about 70 men here before we come. Mosquitoes are plenty. We are going to draw mosquito bars. I sleep with [ ].
I feel tired and [ ] long ride. We came on board the Cahaba [?]. We have got a pretty campground and camp out every night and drill. Little boys are round in camp [ ] melons. We see orange trees and everything else. I will write you more when we get settled down. I wrote you a few lines that arrived here safe and sound.
I got paid off 27 dollars. I meant to send some home. I would [have] sent it if had not come away. Well, I shall have to close. I have not got the direction yet…
Henry W. Ballou Department of the Gulf New Orleans Signal Camp
The following letter was written by Phineas Talcott (1845-1940), the son of Allyn Talcott (1800-1863) and Martha Goodrich Robbins (1808-1896) of Vernon, Tolland county, Connecticut. He addressed his letter to “Friend Fred” whom I feel certain was actually his younger brother Frederick Talcott (1850-1919), despite his use of the word “friend.” From the envelope we learn that Fred was working as a clerk for the Gorham Manufacturing Company in Providence, Rhode Island at the time. It was the largest American manufacturer of sterling and silverplate.
Phineas was 28 years old when he wrote this letter, describing his existence as “a Mark Twain Life.” He was likely alluding to the recently published work by Samuel Clemens titled “Roughing It,” which detailed the realities of western mining camps with a comedic lens. Phineas’ challenges as a sales agent for the Howe Sewing Machine Company are treated with a degree of levity, a style characteristic of Mark Twain.
The letter is dated December 12, 1873—just weeks following the Panic of 1873, which instigated a national economic crisis particularly detrimental to frontier enterprises. The loss of his own employment compels him to state, “I have got to skin out,” a phrase that reflects both the urgent necessity to depart swiftly and the prevailing culture of constant movement and activity that characterized many young men on the frontier after the Civil War, who generally bore minimal responsibilities.
Census records inform us that after his western adventures, Phineas returned to Vernon, Connecticut, where he started a dry goods store.
Denver, Colorado Territory, in the early 1870s.
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Addressed to Frederick Talcott, Esq., Providence, Rhode Island
Denver [Colorado Territory] December 12, 1873
Friend Fred,
Well Old Boy, how do you do after so long? I suppose you will think me a hard crowd for not writing before. Well, Fred, all excuses are foolish so here I go. I am well. As you see by my heading, in site of Pike’s Peak, and have been Bust and Rebust and am getting use to it.
I cannot tell you much of my experience in so little a space as this letter allows me, but I will try and give you a few points. I have been in Denver one month and I tell you, Fred, have passed through the Wars and yet I am not happy. I have been Agent for the Howe Sewing Machine but they have Bust too and, to use the phrase [in common use] here, I have got to skin out.
I expect to leave here in two days. Am going up the Platt River a number of miles to a ranch to go hunting with a man who has been rooming with me. He is a Brick and has been a gunner in the army four years so you see he is prepared for war while there is yet peace. Lots of deer & antelope are brought in here every day. I have seen about 200 antelope on the plains coming herebut was not near enough to hit any—but expect to soon.
You ought to have seen me talking with an Indian Chief the other day. I made slow work of it. But [I] am getting use to it some. I wish you could see some of them red devils in their war paint. This is their phrase for anything large: “Ug, heap Indian,” or “Heap building.” Everything is “heap” when large.
Well Fred, I have led a Mark Twain life. I wish you were with me. There is no better country for health than here. The view of the Rocky Mountains is grand. No words of mine can do them justice or convey to you the Grand sight of them. Send greeting to our friends. — P. Talcott
Pip: Letters written in pencil, on knapsacks, in the rain, beside rivers with green water — Spared and Shared 23 arrives with a full mailbag.
Mara: All of it from Griff, who has assembled a wide range of primary sources this episode — soldiers writing home from active campaigns, a pre-war letter from a naval officer at a fashionable resort, and families writing across the distances that war and life opened up between them.
Pip: Let's start with the soldiers themselves — the ones writing from the front.
—
Writing Through the War: Voices From the Field
Mara: What these letters collectively document is the psychological and physical texture of soldiering — not the grand narrative of battles, but the daily reality of mud, bad coffee, guard duty, and the slow realization that war is nothing like what the recruits imagined.
Pip: The post anchoring this segment follows Charles E. Koonts of Co. E, 19th Ohio Volunteer Infantry — seventeen years old at enlistment, dead at Chickamauga before he turned nineteen, and the writer of twenty-seven letters to his younger sister Clara across nearly two years of service.
Mara: The early letters capture a voice still adjusting to camp life. In October 1861, writing from Alliance, Ohio, he tells Clara: "I have nothing of any importance to say as I am here in camp and nothing going on. But I expect that we shall leave here pretty soon as the regiment is about full."
Pip: That sentence is doing a lot of work. Nothing to say, and yet he writes anyway — because writing to Clara is the thing that keeps the distance manageable.
Mara: The post frames the arc precisely. Before Shiloh, soldiers wrote about hoping to see a battle. After it, the post notes, "they wrote about hoping to survive the next one. It was a grim jolt of reality that hardened the young men almost overnight." Koonts' later letters bear that out — detailed accounts of the fighting at Stones River, requests for shirts and fine combs, opinions on generals, and a strikingly bitter postscript warning Clara away from a man he calls "a contemptible snake."
Pip: The mundane and the devastating sitting in the same envelope.
Mara: Two other letters in this segment offer useful counterpoints. William Hunting Rogers of the 98th New York writes to his brother Ed in April 1862 from Newport News, watching the CSS Virginia — the Merrimack — patrol the James River within a mile and a half of camp. He's playing euchre, getting a tooth filled at Fort Monroe, and reporting on the ironclad standoff with a mix of frustration and dark fascination.
Pip: And then there's Augustus Adams of the 25th Massachusetts, writing from the same Newport News in November 1863 — rebel torpedoes floating down the James, the whole brigade under marching orders, a sister named Julia whose health is "no better."
Mara: Joseph Nellist of the 28th New York writes to his wife Loretta from Darnestown, Maryland, in October 1861 — cold nights on guard duty, one woman in the entire regiment, and an eight-year-old drummer boy in soldiers' clothes. Arthur Aldrich of the 13th New Hampshire writes to his father-in-law from Portsmouth, Virginia, in March 1864, cheerful about rebel prisoners and matter-of-fact about his malaria. Charles Huntington of the 9th New York Cavalry writes to a friend named Hattie from Camp Fenton on New Year's Eve 1861, gossiping about neighbors back home. And the unidentified James P. M., writing from Dalton, Georgia, in May 1864, passes his letter by flag-of-truce boat and reports that of all his old friends from before the war, he can "hardly count ten — all beneath the sod of the battlefield or disappeared God knows where."
Pip: Charles Ballou of the 9th Rhode Island rounds it out — a three-month garrison soldier who spent a day touring Washington and left his name scratched into the Capitol plaster.
Mara: Taken together, these letters map the full emotional range of the war — from boredom and homesickness in the opening months to grief and exhaustion by 1864. The families writing back complete that picture.
Pip: Which is exactly where we go next.
—
Home Front: Letters Across the Distance
Mara: The letters in this segment come from the other direction — from parents, siblings, and spouses writing toward the front, and from one pre-war correspondent writing from a sulphur spring in Virginia.
Pip: The anchor here is Ralph DeLancey Izard III, a young naval officer writing in July 1841 from White Sulphur Springs to his physician. He describes the resort's famous mineral water as tasting like "a solution of gunpowder."
Mara: What that letter captures is the texture of elite antebellum correspondence — social observation, careful health updates, a dry wit about the resort's policy of housing bachelors separately from married guests. John B. Martin's 1834 letter to an old friend in Alabama covers similar personal ground before turning into a detailed critique of Andrew Jackson's presidency, nullification, and Martin Van Buren. And Catharine Bramkamp's 1865 letter to her brother in Ohio reports that her husband William was drafted, traveled twice to Cairo to report, and was sent home both times — the second time because Lincoln had just been killed and the office was closed.
Pip: The Anderson family letters — Parney and John Anderson writing to their son Emerson in the 2nd Massachusetts — are the emotional spine of this group. Relief at his survival after Winchester, careful instructions about what to put in a care package, a Thanksgiving letter that notes the absent son "was not forgotten, neither at the Festival board nor at the alter."
Mara: Distance measured in letters, stamps, and the anxiety of not knowing whether any of them arrived.
—
Pip: What stays with you across all of it is how much of the war was just waiting — waiting to march, waiting for pay, waiting to hear back.
Mara: And writing through the wait, because the letters were the connection. Next episode, more from Spared and Shared.
I could not find an image of Arthur Aldrich but here is a great tintype of Pvt. George H. Bannister who served with Arthur in Co. H, 13th New Hampshire Infantry. (Photo Sleuth)
The following letter was written by Arthur Rupell Aldrich (1844-1918), the son of Jeremiah B. H. Aldrich (1812-1861) and Betsey Applebee (1819-1893) of Pittsburg, Coos county, New Hampshire. Arthur was married to Violetta T. Wright (1835-1909). He wrote this letter to his father-in-law, Wells Wright (1810-1884) of Pittsburg, Coos county, New Hampshire.
Arthur wrote the letter from Portsmouth, Virginia, on 1 March 1864, while serving in Co. H, 13th New Hampshire Infantry. He enlisted on 4 January 1864 and mustered out on 21 June 1865 after having transferred into Co. B, 2nd New Hampshire Infantry. While in Portsmouth, the regiment was engaged in garrison and picket duty. Not long after, they were reassigned to the 18th Army Corps (Army of the James).
[Editor’s Note: The first transcript of this letter was kindly prepared by Abbey Weber Jones.]
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Portsmouth, [Virginia] March 1, 1864
Absent Father,
I now sit down to write a few lines to you to let you know that I am well and hope that these few lines will find you the same. I have not much to write but it is fine weather here now, but the sand flies as bad as bad as bad as you ever see the snow. The boys are all well that went from our place. The old boys are thinking some of going home to March meeting but I think that they will go.
I should like [to] come home to see how things are going on, but I don’t think that [I] shall come home until this war is settled. But I think that we shall give the rebels hell this summer and it will be a[n] end to a great many [lives] before that it is settled. But the rebels are a coming in every day. I see[n] one of them prisoners that got away from Richmond and he said that the rebels had got almost discouraged and a good many of the officers.
We took a rebel spy the other [night] he had the plans of the campground and the forts and everything. And we just took the young gent and put him in Norfolk jail and he will be apt to stay there until this war is ove[r].
I don’t think of much more to write. I am troubled with the Shakes [malaria] some, but not so bad as I was when I first came out here. David Moody and James Bacon was some homesick when they first came out but they are getting over it some. The rest of the boys enjoy themselves very well. A soldier’s life is the easiest life that a man can live, for they have more to eat than they want, and they have somebody to look after them. And when they was at home, they had to take care of themselves. So I think that a soldier stands a better chance than any other man, but I think that the war will be closed this summer so that we all can come home and tend to them meetings. I think that when the soldiers go home, they will take religion in abundance. I understand that some of the converts has backslidden—Silas especially. I don’t think [I have] much more to write this time. Tell Mary and Jules that [I] send my best respects to them and I would like to have them write to me and I will do the same. I must close now. Write as soon as you get this.
Yours respectfully, — Arthur R Aldrich
to Wells Wright. Direct your letters to Washington D. C. Co H, [13th] N H V
My pen is poor and my ink is pale. If you can’t read it, throw it away.
The following letter was written by 25 year-old Catharine Wilhelmina (Speckmann) Bramkamp (1840-1928), the wife of 36 year-old German-emigrant William H. Bramkamp (1828-1900) of Massac county, Illinois. According to a Speckman family tree, William’s full name was Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Bramkamp. Catharine wrote the letter to her brother, Rev. John August Christian Speckmann (1837-1914) of Iron Furnace, Scioto county, Ohio, who was married to Amelia Miller Speckmann in 1858. Catharine mentions one of her children in the letter, Charles Conrad Bramkamp who was born on 20 August 1864.
Massac county, Illinois, borders the Ohio River just opposite Paducah, Kentucky. The town of Bramkamp, Germany, where William was born is located in the region of Lower Saxony approximately 55 miles south of the industrial center Bremen.
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Bramkamp and his wife, Catharine Wilhelmina Speckmann of Massac county, Illinois. Watercolor based on tiny thumbnail images of them on Ancestry.com
[Editor’s Note: The first draft of this transcript was kindly prepared by Abbey Weber Jones.]
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Massac County, Illinois May 10th [18]65
Dear Sister-in-law and Brother,
I take my pen in hand to inform you that we are all well, only our Charles Conrad has got the hacking cough. But he is getting better now. I don’t know much news—only that the Lutherans has got a new preacher now (Old Lutherans). Winaker is in Liberia in the Old Church now. Our quarterly meeting was last Sunday but the P[residing] Elder was not here. This is the second time that he was not here.
Here in Massac, it is getting a little better now. [My husband] William has joined again. There has been some sins [among] the other members again. We are willing to serve the Lord yet with all our heart [even] if it does go to trials. Pray for us that we may stand fast.
Now I must write you that William was drafted. He had to go to Cairo two times for the first time he was there, the news came that Lincoln was dead so the office was closed. He came home on 5 day furlough and when he got there again, they told him to go home again without a furlough. Them that had to stay got back again before he went the second time but they said that the rest have to report yet. This is about all the news I know, so I will come to a close.
Dear Sister-in-law—and you forgot yet that you said that you didn’t know whether you would write. I would like to have you to write very much. Write soon. Our best respects to you all, — C. W. Bramkamp
Sophia says she can’t come to see you like she did when you lived here. She says you should move back here again; then she would come. She says she wants Simons and the baby’s likeness. She knew Simon yet, when John showed it to her.
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 Teazer3 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.
3The 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.
The following letter was written by Charles Deforest Huntington (1843-1869), the son of David Huntington (1812-1885) and Adaline Gordon (1815-1894) of East Randolph, Cattaraugus county, New York. Charles enlisted with his brother Monroe as a private in Co. E, 9th New York Cavalry. He mustered out of the regiment in late October 1861 with a surgeon’s certificate of disability.
Charles wrote this letter from Camp Fenton which was located north of Washington City on Meridian Hill about two miles from Pennsylvania Avenue.
Patriotic header on Charles’ stationery
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Camp Fenton December 30, 1861 Washington D. C.
Dear Friend Hattie,
I thought I would write a line to you and let you know how we are getting along out here in Washington. We are all well and growing fat and having lots of fun. We are going to get our pay in a few days and then I guess there will be a rattling in our pockets. The boys are all well. Cobern is as fit as a bear. His face looks [like] a side of pork. Monroe [Huntington] is homesick a little. Will[iam] Hills is getting better very fast.
It is warm and pleasant here. We held Christmas out here in camp. We had a nice dinner. We are going to have a New Years’ dance out in Washington but I am afraid that we can’t go to it. The girls are scarce out here in camp. There has not been a good looking one on the ground in two weeks. I have not seen a good looking girl since we left Albany. There is lots of nigger girls that come to do washing for the men. Some are as black as thunder.
I would like to be home and see you with the measles for it is fun. I think, don’t you? Nort[on] Miller has got them now. He is gaining very fast. How does Miss Camel and old Vansites get along? I heard that he went to see her. They would make a good match for he has got money enough to clothe her and make her happy. And George can marry Ellen and live with them and take care of them in their old age. And as for Mary, she can get a man most any time for she is as handsome as a doll. Most any man would be glad to get her—at least I would for she would be good to put in the cornfield to keep the crows off.
How does Frank and Ziller get along? I heard they had a fuss. I think Frank is good enough for her, don’t you? How does the school go off this winter? Does she have any spelling schools? Do any of the girls go to school this winter?
There is no news to write and so I will stop. Please answer this if you will for I should like to hear from you and your folks. Keep a share for yourself. Goodbye, — Charles Huntington
