Monocacy Mill, Aug. 5, 1864.
Dearest Abiah,
Another move, but a short one. We are now about seven miles from Frederick City, near a large grist mill. Came here the 3rd, and such a quantity of Griddle cakes and things of that kind as have been cooked since we came here! The flour and meal is not dear, meal 3 cents per lb. And a 3 quart pail full of flour a ½ of a dollar. I have a little frying pan, and it is in use most of the time, so is my pail. Hard tack is at a discount. I had some cheese yesterday. It is the first that I have had. Yesterday we expected to stop here some days and we had quite a time rejoicing. This morning at about 3 o’clock we were called up and ordered to pack up and move, at daylight. Got all ready. Daylight came, but we did not move. Hour after hour wore away and nine o’clock came and we moved. The colonel told up to take our stakes and other timber that was used in fixing our tents, so we formed into line, each man with his rail stakes and poles and marched about 40 rods to an elevated level piece of ground, formed by company into line, stacked arms, laid out the ground into company streets, and have just got the tent up. I have skirmished shirt and pants for _____. Tinkham has just written a short letter to one of his sweethearts and I am seated on my rubber blanket writing to mine.
We get no news here. Rarely get a mail, but have a chance to send off letters every morning at seven o’clock. I hope we can remain here for sometime. It is just out of the valley in which Frederick City is situated. The farms in the vicinity are pretty good, but the land is quite broken and poorer that where he have been, but it is a splendid place to encamp in. The hills are full of good springs. Some of them alone would supply 20,000 men and the Monocacy is a clear stream, with a rocky or gravelly bottom, affording a fine chance to bathe. I think if the Johnnies do not cross the Potomac in force we shal remain here for sometime. Their infantry has not been across the river for sometime. Their cavalry are often across; the Potomac so low that they can cross at almost any time.
I wrote to you from Tenally town that we had a fine rain. Have had none here and the country is suffering badly from the drought. The Rebs have not taken half the plunder from Maryland that has been represented. They did not have time, and most of the property was driven back and they did not have the time to hunt it up.
Our force of infantry here is probably about 20 thousand. Theirs is probably 28 thousand. Ours is growing
smaller every day by the term of service os so many expiring. There is no such thing with them as when the term of a man expires he is immediately conscripted in again.
I was intending to have written something about the prisoners that we took at Washington. Supposed I did. I was left as a guard over 4 prisoners. Got into conversation with them. Told them I had lived South. One of them asked what my name was. Told him Charley Blake. “Did you teach in the Kimbrough neighborhood?” “Yes.” He jumped up and gave me his hand and said his name was Baker, son of Willis P. Baker. I knew him but he was pretty young. He knew more of me than I did of him, but I knew his father as well as I ever knew anybody. Soon two more prisoners came in and a Major came along and told me to take them to Headquarters. I heard from my old friends in the Kimbrough neighborhood, and Ellerslie Bakre was from Ellerslie. He was in the 13th Georgia. Yesterday I saw a gun that one of our men took from the hands of a man that was killed at Washington, with the name of J. M. Tomlinson, 12th Ga. I knew such a man in Carroll.
There is not a particle of enmity between the men we take prisoners and us. If this Union is ever restored, there will be a better feeling between the North and South than ever before existed. Our force here is good for the Rebs, if we had but 15 thousand. We are good for them on this side of the Potomac. We keep our infantry for the last few days back they the same. The cavalry on our side watch theirs the same, occasionally raiding on this side. In that they have the advantage of us, as there is nothing to take on the Virginia side. They will come over here and levy a contribution on a town, get the money on the Virginia side. The more we had of the money the poorer we should be. There is no business to suffer, nothing but women and children. If anyone in Vermont wants to have their buildings burned over their heads, they had better come out and do it. I have seen our boys, some of them, plunder a garden when it was all a family had, but that is not my style. You spoke of the calf. Was it our old cow, or the new one that had a calf? Well hurrah! Hurrah! We have had a mail 2 letters and a paper. One from you and one from Mary Ann. You may guess how glad I was you have received my letters in the order they have been written, though there are four behind, 1 written the 20th up in Snicker’s Gap, one written at Tenallytown, one written in Virginia again West of Harper’s Ferry, one written near Frederick City. I sent to father $30. for you, when at Tenally town. It was handed to Mr. Baxter to be expressed. I have stopped to read the letters and paper, and have had dress parade, and it is too dark to write more tonight.
