16th New York Light Artillery - NEW

Item LTR-11761

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 2 pages, written in period ink.



Yorktown, Virginia
August 1, 1863
 
 
Dear Mother,
 
I take this opportunity to write you a few lines. It has been some time since I had a letter from you, and it has been a long time since I wrote to you. But you have been remembered by me every day. I suppose you have heard about me. Abby said she told you I was well.
 
We have moved around from place to place a good deal this summer. We have finally landed in the great city of Yorktown. I don't like it here. They keep us cleaning old camps and digging ditches. When we started up the peninsula, they all thought we were going to make a strike at Richmond, but we did not hurt them much. We're going to wait for Foxy Lee to come here now and attack Yorktown. They went to fighting up north. They thought they'd better hold one in the south.
 
It is awful warm here today. It has rained here most every day for a month. I have been very healthy so far since we left Suffolk. I see by the papers that they have been making them fly in Conklin with the draft. They will make the Copperhead dig out for Dixie, or pay them a little $300. It is that I don't know what I should do if I was drafted. I couldn't raise the 300.
 
I got a letter from Haviland saying he was going to Wisconsin. That is good country if a fellow is tough and healthy. I like the western states very much, but I had to come home to see my gal, and now I would like to come home again, but Uncle Sam had got me this time. I suppose Abby Jane had got a good garden according to her tell. She said she had a new dress and a new sash. She will shine. I suppose she wouldn't even know me now with my old blue pants and white woolen shirt on, barefooted, shoveling dirt, and digging ditches.
 
I am away from camp now on detached duty. I have nothing to do, only stand guard every other day. I hope the time will come when we will see each other again and this awful war will end. But the way they work us now doesn't look like it, but I suppose they want to keep enough soldiers ready.
 
Well, I have to come to a close now. Write to me as soon as you can. I want to hear from you. All soldiers like to get letters, that's what they all look for when the mail comes. Goodbye for the present.
 
From Silas M. Gage
To Mary A. Lester
 
Be careful don’t you read this. We had a horse killed with lightning yesterday. Seven knocked down with the shock, and a man knocked down. He was going to water the horses.