123rd New York Infantry

Item LTR-10928

Description

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


Virginia
September 18, 1862
 
 
Dear Sister Jane,
 
It is with much pleasure I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well and I hope you are the same.  But I am some ways from you but I have not forgotten you and I hope you ain’t forgotten me.
 
We have left Washington and crossed over the river into Virginia and have camped down again but I don’t know how long it will be before we will have to start again and I guess no one knows.
 
But I will tell you some good news.  I have seen Ruth Craig and Billy Corbet and James L. Rickert and Eber Odle, Wallace Miller, but I did not see Harvey.  For James said that Harvey was sick in the hospital at Baltimore the last he heard of him.  Jim Rickert has been sick but Wallace was at the battle at Bull Run last, so was Ruth Craig and he had his horse shot from under him and fell between two horses and he was hurt so that he could not get away from them and they took him prisoner and they thought he was hurt so that he could not get away and they took him off the battlefield and left him and in the night he crawled away and he said that he got past the rebels guards well enough but when he came to our guard, they shot at him three times and he laid down in the grass till morning and then he got thru.
 
He has got well now but the regiment he was in has gone on somewhere but he don’t know where, but he says he will go to his regiment when he hears where it is.
 
I can’t think of much to write now for I want a letter from you and I want to know why you don’t write to me.  If you don’t I won’t write to you again.
 
Give my love to Ellen and to Father and all the folks in Putnam.
 
So goodbye, your old Brother,
Jim Crow pop corn.
Answer soon
 
Direct James D. Leigh, Company D, 123^rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers
Washington, D.C. In care of Colonel McDougall