57th New York Infantry

Item LTR-7431

Description

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


Headquarters 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, 2nd Corps
Camp near Stevensburgh, Virginia

January 20th 1864

My Dear Chum,

Here I am. All alone. Not with one of those domestic female institutions to twine her tiny arms so affectionately and caressingly around me. With the fascinations of an angel to sooth forgotten sorrow and afflictions. Not with one of Eve’s fair flowers to smile. O’ so prettily and to indulge loves soliloquy until the heart becomes mature enough to overflow and scatter thoughts and sentiments mercilessly to the winds that are afterwards wafted again against me with derision and scorn. But all alone. Sweet repose is bachelor’s loneliness. You have struck the mark. Tonight your trice welcome missive reaches me whilst the noisy sound of tattoo strikes and reverberates against the tympanicum of my ear, calling forth the emotions of an enraged candidate for the presidency of the bachelor’s rights convention, in words of despair and utter hopelessness. But why resign fate to the tide of passion? No! I am still a free man. The enchanting and delusive chains of matrimony have not yet ensnared me. What marriage! Do you really desire my sentiments upon a theme that has almost turned paradise into the regions of black despair? What! Marriage? Do you ask me to speak of that curse, which when the deity created man that the happy angels grew jealous of his lonely ecstasy and lectured for him to stamp upon Adam’s children an untold curse – was selected as the horror of horrors and as an extreme measure was thundered from the golden gates of heaven with a terrific clash and the just sentence pronounced in one peal after another. “Oh Man! The gulf between earthly mortals and the celestial inhabitants shall be called marriage!”. What! Marriage? Has this, the black football that frightened Satan’s great host in his great den of un-thoughts of pangs that was kicked out and hurled back against man to suffer its preserve, in all the struggles, in all the hallucination, in all the disarrangement of good principles and the Old Micks “mightiest lever to overturn goodness and triumph in the glories of his bad book? What! Marriage! No! Tear it from the leaves that chronicles the fate of man, then man will be blessed. But dear chum, they say “it is a necessary evil”. It is necessary to evil. But it is unfair to annoyance one’s thesis without advancing argument in support of them. I would then respectfully invite your attention to the following questions. Viz! did you ever see a rich man tumble into matrimony and die as rich as when he commenced that domestic curse? Ans: perhaps you did. Do you know why the devil never got married? Ans: because his grandmother told him it was wicked. Do you know why James Buchanan B. T. never got married? Ans: because he thought “Old Nick” would take him alive. Do you know who are the biggest rogues in our Country? Ans: those who get married oftenest. Do you know why you and I are not married? Ans: because we can’t see the point.” Do you know why they don’t marry in Heaven? Ans: because they have no women there. Do you know why they do not marry, in hell? Ans: because they have no young men there. But I have now said enough about that plague; you might some day give me “particular fits” for all this. Your mind might have even been set upon some star while you intended to form an everlasting attachment with. I hope then I have not interfered with your calculations and as an excuse I would simply say that I am now attached to the bachelors craft, though I am yet tolerably youthful but I have been dully sworn and mustered into that noble and laudable institution. “The bachelors independent running machine.” Ho!. What joys in a bachelors sanctum? And one of our strictest rules is to advocate our cause and to invite all the youth in our country to join in with us “for we are bound for the happy land of Caanan”. Just think of our privileges. We can go where we please; and we can do what we please. For instance, we can go see the ladies.

Now Joe, one more word upon this subject and I shall have done. You as a young man blessed with all the vigor of the proud American youth, have need to know a little of this world. You no doubt build many air castles which you term in your own mind “bird cages”. This is a very pretty name to give to that concern; but do you ever think of huts or shanties? Don’t you know the poor man is happier than the rich? Don’t you know that there is more real happiness in a little home than there is in a big one? Don’t you know then that no home at all is first rate? These observations should not pass your mind.

I will now proceed to speak with you like a good fellow. I am fooling away time like sixty so I will proceed to inform you my good old chum that I am in first rate health and that everything is as quiet as the tread of mouse without boots on. The Army of the Potomac is now having a pretty good time as far as heavy marching is concerned. We are encamped for the winter and have tip top times. I started to write you a letter on the 16th and then was interrupted so I will at any rate send you as much as I wrote.

I must now close this letter with my warmest wishes for your success and hope to hear from you as soon as you can get a chance to write.

By the way, I will send you some of the letters which I received from one of my correspondents which upon perusal you will please return to me when you write again.

I think they are very good. The lady is evidently well educated and that she is all that she represents. I have full assurance and am perfectly satisfied.

So good night.

Your affectionate friend,

John Schwartz