6th Pennsylvania Cavalry

Item LTR-5788

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 6 pages written in period ink.

Headquarters, 4th Army Corps
Warwick Court House, VA

April 12th 1862

Dear Miss Ella,

I have not heard from you for a long time. But stand on no footing of ceremony with you. And as Major Lawrence, who leaves us today and will take this to Washington to be mailed, does not go for an hour or two. Yes, I seize the opportunity while the General is engaged in the office before our morning reconnaissance, to write a hasty note. To assure you that distance does not at all decrease my fondness for home. And make me appreciate any the less my dear friends there. I enclosed a note to you, in one of my letters to Mother from our camp near Newport News. But as she has said nothing about it, I fear she did not receive it. Owing perhaps to our very imperfect mail facilities.

I have only been able to give an outline sketch of our movements heretofore, but sufficient to enable those at home to follow using our march, unless at last you may overtake us. Here on the banks of the Warwick River, about 15 miles above Monroe, quietly reposing before a strong line of the enemy’s fortifications, extending from Yorktown, across the Peninsula to the James River. Believed this, they are in strong force under Magruder, the great Prince John himself. And here we are likely to have a great battle before long. This precious piece of intelligence you will please not communicate to Mother. For she would be sure to unnecessarily distress herself in anticipation of something very dreadful that may never happen to me. Which should it arrive, is but the chance to which we must all expect to expose ourselves. Wouldn’t we rescue our country from the wretched solaces of her enemies?

We are now actually in the presence of the rebels and have seen them and picked off many by our skirmishers, without any serious loss on our side. But the difficulty of getting our supplies over the swamps of their low country has greatly impeded our movements. I am sorry to chronicle the loss to our staff of Major Lawrence, who you recollect came with us from Washington as volunteer aide. He has the misfortune to be a little deaf and the colds and exposure has so much increased his infirmity that the Surgeons advise him to give up his plans and to, though much against his inclination, he has determined to return. He deserves, I think, a great deal of credit for coming as he has done. For he gave up, temporarily, the pleasantest foreign appointment in the gift of the government, that to Florence, to come and keep up his whole establishment, which he had previously sent on to Paris. So, if any insidious remarks are made in your presence, you can set them right in the opinion of the worlds, your world at least.

I wish often that some of my friends from home could see us here. How comfortably we fixed in “Brown’s Hotel,” Warwick, and ride with us. Thus, some of the really beautiful scenes by which, in spite of the general lowness of the country, we are surrounded. The woods are of almost provincial growth and some of the gnarled and knotted roots, with the green moss and turf by which they are covered with the clear springs gurgling from their midst would delight the very soul of a Dusseldorf artist. I shall have a great deal to tell you when I get back. Things that were I to attempt to describe would take up I don’t know how many pages. I can’t tell when I shall have another opportunity of writing, but I hope you will not wait to hear from me before writing to me yourself. For letters from home are very earnestly looked for and highly prized. With my best regards to Richard. Believe me,

Very truly yours,

Oswald Jackson