111th Pennsylvania Infantry - Wounded at Antietam

Item LTR-10801

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 4 pages, written in period ink.

 

Camp Wilkins
Pittsburgh
 
June 4^th 1861
 
Dear Brother and Sister,
 
I received your letter a few days ago and was glad to hear from you.  It is a great treat to receive a letter here.  I am well and hope this will find you the same.  Especially Martellus, the little one.  I did not think of you naming him and make a good tough boy of him.  You were talking of sending some postage stamps.  You need not do that.  I’ve money enough and would send your boy some for the name, if I had a little more.
 
I got a letter from our folks the same day I got yours.  They heard from you.  They said you were almost killed when you heard I had gone.  Our folks very bad when they got my first letter.  They felt better after they got the next.  I was not disappointed.  I expect that if they all stayed at home on that account, that they would know one to fight.  
 
There is great respect shown to the soldiers here in Pittsburg.  I attended meeting last Sunday.  Was invited home with one of the persons to dinner.  There is a thousand or 1,500 visitors in the camp every day.  We are going in to another camp, the 64^th.  It is 12 miles from Pittsburgh, up the river.  There is 45 acres in it.  Good water and shady trees.
 
I left this letter to go on guard.  Haven’t had time to write until today, the 8^th.  We are now in the new camp.  The name is Camp Wright.  It is a nice place here.  We can look onto the river.  We very often go to the river to bathe.
 
We had a dispatch about the first of the month stating that Uniontown, up the Monongahela was taken by the secessionists and we had orders to march and retake it.  We got three days rations and was a going the next morning.  The order was countermanded.  We were very much disappointed, for we wanted to go.
 
Our greatest trouble is about the girls that they will catch it when the soldiers get free.
 
Direct:
 
Camp Wright
Care of Captain John Landroth 
Colon McClain’s Regiment Pennsylvania
 
Martellus Todd