11th Maine Infantry - Captured at Bermuda Hundred, VA - NEW

Item LTR-11048

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 3 pages, written in period ink.


Beaufort
Port Royal, South Carolina
 
April 29, 1863
 
Dear Sir,
 
I received your favor of the ninth and am glad to hear that the draft got there safe.  We have returned from the Charleston expedition all safe and when they will try it again, I don’t know.  And don’t know why they gave it up.  They did not hurt the Monitors a bit, except the one with two turrets and that never was good for anything. 
 
General Hunter was ready to do his part.  This is the best organized department that I have been in.  The officers don’t like it very well.  For he won’t let them shout Uncle Sam.  Every officer has to give an account of everything he has in his possession.  If every General in the army was as strict, it would save the government a good many dollars.  He has a place for everything and everything has to be put in its place.  Every old piece of tent, old iron, everything that is worth a cent has to be taken care of.  If it is lost, the officer in charge of it has to pay for it.  Every officer that has one has to pay for a servant, has to keep one or he can’t get no pay for one.  On the whole, it is the best organized department that I have ever been in.  
 
I think that it will be the best thing that can be done with the farm to have the worked done by the job and Simon, I suppose, can do it as well as anyone and you can get him to look after it.  Then the neighbor’s cattle won’t be so likely to trouble him as they would some others that Amos Whitney noted.  The wagon that I had from him was not as good as he recommended it to be.  And if he wants 7.50 ct, half the face of the note, you may pay it as he can wait until I get home.  For I have paid him more than it was worth already.  I offered him the wagon for that note once after I had paid him twenty dollars towards it and he would not take it.  And the wagon was worth, then, more than it was when I got it.  
 
The hay sells better than I expected.  I knew that you would sell it at the right time.  I feel perfectly easy about things when they consult you.  I don’t expect but what some things will go bad.  But when anybody wants anything that belongs there, if they call on you, it will be alright.  Some men would tell a different story to a woman from what they would you.  My wife saw that they told her hay was going to be very cheap, so she believed then and sold two tons at ½ by it.  So that is the difference in knowing when to sell.
 
Commend me to your family.  
 
Your most obedient,
 
A. G. Mudgett
 
Jabez Knowlton