25th Maine Infantry

Item LTR-488

Description

4 page original Civil War soldier's letter written in period ink and war dated.

25th Regiment Maine Volunteers….Colonel Fessenden
Company C

February the 1st 1863

To Royal Doughty,

I got your letter last night. I was glad to hear from you. We are well and hearty. We have got the best encampments on the whole front. We are doing guard duty and building forts. Albert and I went down to see George this morning. When we got there he with about 2 hundred others were starting for their regiment. George looks tough and hearty. I gave him the letter. He read it and gave it to me. He got one from you this morning but hadn’t time to write. He told me to write to you when that box came. I will send it to him if I can. They say we can’t send anything below Alexandria. But I will do all I can to get it to him. He left in good spirits and wide awake to see his regiment. As to what I think it is a horrid thing. You cannot tell but little by what you read in the papers this whole country is destroyed for many years. But the rebels never can take the capital. It is surrounded with forts on every side. But oh the misery of the cursed. More I think we have 2 hundred thousand sick and wounded men out here I have been to several sites out here. They are full of them. This encampment where George has been is horrid. There is from 7 to 12 thousand convalescents there. Oh what a horrid site. They have 70 barracks one hundred feet long. We are now in the rainy season and we are stuck in the mud. We have to bury all the officers that die out here. We went to the Capital Thursday. The mud was over our boots much of the way. We had the funeral to Washington, the city, and carried the corpse to Georgetown. It is up the river. We got home in the night all covered with mud. I could write many things of the suffering caused by this war but it is of no use. We are fast and can’t get away till our time is out. I must close. Write to me Roy.

From Daniel Doughty