83rd Pennsylvania Infantry - Soldier's Poem

Item LTR-11016

Description

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


Dear Sister,
 
I received your kind letter the 20^th of this month, which I perused with much pleasure. Well, Maria, here is the stars and stripes a little plainer than that flag of yours.  You must try and raise better flag than that.  Well, we are still here yet and how long we will stay, I don’t know.  I am well and in good spirits and feel like fighting very much.  The company was all measured the other day and I measured 6 feet and one inch.  I stretched one inch and a half since I left home.  Tell [brother] Morrison that I am the biggest man.
 
Well, that news about Fort Sumter being taken and Charleston being bombarded, I guess is not so (but I wish it was).  Yesterday, we had a big review of about 75 thousand men of war besides about 25 thousand spectators. I tell you.  It was a sight to see.  About 100 thousand all in one field of 6 or 7 hundred acres.  Well, nothing more about that.
 
Well, Maria, I would like to help eat that chicken you spoke of in your letter. Some chicken would go very well and I would like to help eat some of that pig too.  It would go very well.  I suppose you are living in your fat now and I hope you will live well while I am gone.  I suppose you feel very lonesome because your Billy McCartney has quit writing to you.  But Maria, that was wonderful.  You and him must have had some talk before he went away.  I want you and Sarah to keep in good spirits until I go home and then we will have big time.  Tell Sarah for her and Hank to wait until I go home before they get married and for your part, I ain’t scared very bad.  I would like to have been at that party at Allen Hutchinson’s very well but it was rather far for me to go that night.  Well, nothing more of that.
 
Well, have not got our pay yet.  But expect to get it this week and we are to get a new suit of Zouave uniform this week and then we will be about right.  When I get my money, I will get my picture taken and send it home to father and mother.  I expect I will get it taken on copper plate and then I can send it in a letter and it won’t cost much.
 
That poetry you composed done very well considering who done it.  Now I will write a few lines in poetry shape.  This is the first verse.
 
Home again, home again
From a foreign shore,
And oh, it fills my soul with joy
To meet my friends once more.
 
Here I dropped the parting tear
To cross the ocean foam,
But now I am once again with those
Who kindly greet me home.
 
2.  Happy hearts, happy hearts
With mine have laughed in glee.
But oh the friends I loved in youth
Seem happier to me
 
And if my guide should be the fate
Which bids me longer roam.
But death alone can break the tie
That binds my hear to home.
 
3.  Music sweet, music soft,
Lingers round the place
And oh, I feel the childhood charm
That time cannot efface.
Then give me but my homestead root
I’ll ask no palace dome.
For I can live a happy life
With those I love at home.  Amen
 
A. K. Cleeland
 
To Maria Cleeland
 
Write soon.  My love to you all.  Amen.  I have no news to write so you must excuse for not writing more.