1st Regiment California Volunteers - 71st Pennsylvania Infantry - Killed at Antietam

Item LTR-11380

Description

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


Washington
August 10, 1861
 
Dear Father and Mother,
 
I have been waiting for a letter from you for some time past. I have [not] been wrote since I received one from you and waited anxiously for one from you. I am in good health and getting along after fashion (a poor fashion). 
 
I shall rejoice and be exceedingly glad when this war is brought to a close for camp life is meanest, dirtiest way of living in the world. The men are all blowing because we have not been paid and well they might for we are deprived of a great many comforts of life and there is not one in twenty-five got a cent of money. But they are now making out the pay so I expect we shall get it soon. I think I shall pay Allen some if not all. I must keep some. I don’t know how much I shall get. Father they say they can’t hold us  but 3 months without swearing in again. If that is so I am coming home, you may depend.
 
We have had times here they undertook to swear in a lot of men. About 100 would not swear in and the colonel tried to scare them into it. They got one company armed with loaded guns to fetch them but that did not work and they are held prisoners now all but those that run away. I tell you Father there is a great cheat in officer paymasters and so forth. They had tried to pay the Pennsylvania 3 month regiments in bills not worth full value.
 
I should like to be in Yankee land whortleberries about this time. There is hosts of peaches here they are brought around to sell. We have orders not to leave camp but we do sometimes to get peaches. But if we should be absent from roll call, we must catch it. I never have been caught yet.
 
Write immediately please,
Albert E. Loveland
 
Direct to Albert E. Loveland
Company H, Colonel Baker’s California Regiment