Long Island, Boston Harbor,
Sept. 22d, 1863
Dear wife,
I received your letter this morning. I was truly glad to hear from you, for I had begun to feel uneasy about not hearing from you, but it made my heart jump when I received it, but when I perused it and found that you were all well I felt better, but do not sit up too late to write to me. I had rather not hear quite as often. I am so afraid that you will make yourself sick. I am on guard again so that I have time to write you this afternoon, but tonight comes the lonely time.
About those photographs, I had them taken from the old plate at Montpelier. I found Dr. Watson at work there and left the money with him and am glad he has sent them on so faithfully. I do not care who you give one of them to. I thought I would have him send two, as they cost but 50 cents apiece and the postage. How long we are to remain here I know not. There were two hundred men sent here last week, or rather there were near 800 sent from the Island, 200 from the Vermont Camp, about 50 were all the conscripts left. There were but about half of that number in the camp. The others were in the guard house and hospital, and we had all the guard and fatigue duty of the camp to do and it came pretty hard. There has 15 come in since. Dan
Skinner was among them. I tell you I was glad to see him. We are expecting to see more tonight. The talk is that we are to remain here until there are 200 men in our camp, but I do not think there are that number in the State to come on. My opinion is that we shall stay here until they all get along. Most of those that come now are fine men. Our conveniences for writing are met first rate. I got a box this morning, so I am writing quite well fixed, but it is a small box, but I can get my paper on it, and that is better than a knapsack or my knee. Is Charley Carpenter coming down to Boston? I should like to know it before hand and get him a pass to come over. I should like to have him some over and see me.
tonight comes the lonely time
Phew! She wrote! (Do her letters survive?)
These would be a good subject for a presentation at the history center sometime, if you are ever up for it.
This was a presentaion, once upon a time
The transcripts come from a presentation my aunt gave many years ago, to DAR or Colonial Dames or one of the many other groups she belonged to. The original letters are probably in the possession of one of her heirs, I would guess. Another aunt more recently made photocopies of the whole set so the rest of us could enjoy them too, and I thought it was really cool that part of the “story” takes place in Brattleboro!
For now, I’m going to try to continue to submit them in “real time” as the original events happened.
Great
The real time submission is a fun way to present it, allowing all of us to follow along as if we dropped back in a time machine. Looking forward to more.