32nd & 31st Maine Infantry

Item LTR-8813

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 3 pages, written in period ink.


Augusta Camp Keys, Mar 20th, 1864

Dear Wife.

I now take my pen in hand to write you a few lines. I am well and hope that you and the rest of the folk are the same. I wish that I was at home tonight for I want to see you very much but I can’t be, so I must be content to stay here. I have been to a meeting today. There was thirty of us that all went down and marched into the meeting house together. I don’t expect that you can find out half of this for any one might as well write in bedlam as here for some are singing, some are praying, some are playing cards and the rest boxing lots and hollering and swearing. I run a fowl of Stephen Irish today. He has been here two weeks. He is in Co B. El Wells has enlisted and is here in our company but he goes by another name here. Wheatley has him examined and sworn in. He seems to be pretty well contented. We have got about six hundred men in our regiment now. We had to go on drill now and on guard. I wish I could see Baby. I want you to kiss her for me. Wheatley is going home this week if he can get a furlough.
Dear Amanda, I wish I could see you tonight but I suppose that if I live and this war lasts, that I have got to be separated from you three long years. But I hope that it won’t be so long as that. I am in hopes that I shall get a furlough in about two weeks and I mean to get a longer furlough than I did before, if I can. As I don’t think of much more to write tonight, I shall have to come to a close. I want you to write as soon as you get this. Direct your letter to

Augusta Me, Camp Keyes, Co A 32 Regt.
From your Dearest husband, Henry E. Clark.