44th New York Infantry - NEW

Item LTR-12071

Description

Original Civil war letter, 4 pages written in period ink.


Company E
Ellsworth Regiment
Albany
 
September 21^st 1861
 
Dear Brother,
 
I received your letter yesterday and was glad to hear from you. I thought I would write a few lines before I had to preach a sermon. It is only of a few lines I can write to you. I have been downtown and just got back to dinner, and thought that I would write to you and tell you that it is pretty cold this morning. The boys have got their overcoats on. It rained very hard all yesterday, afternoon and night.
 
I have got Albany blacking on my boots, which makes them weather better. The blacking corresponds with the belt, which I have to wear. It has got a piece of brass on it, which has got three letters on it: SNY, which stands for the state of New York, but the little boys call us "smarty nose yankees." That's great to be a "smarty nosed Yankee" if you don't disgrace the name. I am writing to you on a short piece of board and laying on my bed. The boys are writing or reading tracks, or roping down town. We have got a few hours to attend meetings or go where we please. You don't know what a time I have here. A singing, dancing, or a boxing
 
I ain't as old as when I worked at home, as my limbers aren't as getting limber, and it ain't like farming. You always have to be straight as an arrow. You know I ain't very straight, yet I ain't very cracked. I have had my hair cut off. About closest to see at home how bad I could look, and I ain't hurt my ears any. 
 
I was a-going along by the wash house and looked that way, and thought I seen a jackass are coming. He had such big ears, and I looked again, and seeing the ears hung on my own head. I was glad that the sun hat and burnt on both of them. They don't look quite as bad as they did. A military hat makes them look big.
 
I am in the barracks, and I've seen the prisoners at the penitentiary at work every day, a wheeling dirt or something else. I am on guard tomorrow. Company D is on today.
 
We are filling up very fast and hope that we will leave from here before long. We have about 800 in our regiment. So, you can think, I see something every day. It starts to scare me some to see one faint away, but they are too common, and I am getting used to it.
 
Give my respects to all.
 
From P. Mussero
 
To Dudley