Groton May 1^st 1861

 

Friend John

                        I do not know how you will like the ide of receiving a letter from me but I write you on the supposition that you feel something as I should in your circumstances, as if you would like to hear from any one home. Therefore I beg your pardon for thus bringing myself to your notice without saying any thing to you about. William Priest and Company go today and so I thought I whould have a good chance to send it to you. I suppose now you are quartered at the capital and having a pretty good time, with not much prospect of fighting very soon. As you went from here on short notice I did not see you after you knew you were going. Neither you or I thought you would be called so soon when we were talking about it the day we / went down the Lowell road. You fellows had a fine time going through Baltimore. I suppose it made your eyes stick out some when the mob were so numerous & the stones, brick bats, bottles, bullets &c were flying around you. I have no doubt it made you pretty mad and that you felt like "getting off you gun". I suppose you was one of the lucky ones that did not get hit, although I believe some in your company did. How did Charly Haynes stand fire. I suppose you did not wish yourselves back again in Groton I should think your greeting at Baltimore would make you rather savage for fighting, and make you feel as if you could send some of those Southerners to a warmer region with a good relish. I wish you could have been here last week and have seen how much excitement there was here. The ladies were at the town / Hall for three or four days making clothes for you fellows, and I presume that by this time you have some of them. Monday at town meeting there was an appropriation made for the families of the soldiers and so you need not have any anxiety about your wife and 11 small children and 9 at the breast, as they will be well taken care of. I have heard it suggested that some families in town will be better taken care of than as if their heads had been at home. by that I mean the men. And that reminds me of a good story which I must tell you much as I hate to fill up a letter with such trash, "Once a man entered the house of a neighbor and them both the man and his wife, fighting, she pulling cratching and biting in that way peculiar to the feminine gender. He at once tryed to stop them and began to try moral suasion with the woman. He told her that she out not to use her / her husband in that disrespectful way, that they were both one and that the man was the head and the woman ought to submit to him. "And sure" said she, "have not I right to scratch my own head" and at hair she went again". We are just beginning to receive letters from those who went away. Last night I saw one from Charly Haynes to W^m Priest. He seemed to be contented & happy. I put on W^m P's military clothes last night and it made me feel quite warlike. Groton has taken quite a start since you went away and now flags of every size and shape are flying from every pole from the tops of houses, from the corners of the fences and every where else. but every one of them is the stars and Stripes, and it would not be safe for any one to run up any other kind. Last night at the debate Fannie Eaton sung the star spangled banner. W^m Priest has just called here / on his way up town. he had his military clothes on and looked quite soldier like. The report was a few days ago that Mr. Lakim had up a secession flag in which case it had been determined to help him down with it. But I believe it is not so, at least he has not been visited yet. In a letter I lately received from home my brother writes that in the town secessionists are knocked down and choked and in another one which I rec. while writing this sentence he says that in the country where we live, there are a great many secessionists. He tells me he is intending to run up a Unionian flag, and they say they will haul it down and he has told them that he would shoot the first man who tryed it and he will for he has a good supply of courage, a good rifle and is a dead shot. He will make them trouble if they try that. He says that the excitement is very great there. (at / Binghamton). We are to have a May party today but I guess it will rain before night and it is not very pleasant now. I hope you will find time and inclination to write me and tell me of your adventures. You have no fear of Washington's being taken now I suppose. Have you any idea whether you are to go south any farther or not. Likely you train every day but do not have much of a chance to see the city. As my time is up, I will give you my last advice. Fight like a brick, John, if you get a chance, and send some of those fellows where they ought to have gone long ago. Hope you will excuse this writing as I am in a hurry. Remember me to any of my friends you see.

 

Yours Truly

O. R. Burchard

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