Camp Near Downesville Md.

Oct. 12. 1862

                       

Dear Sister,

                                                Sunday after noon half past three olcock! It is cooler than Greenland here to day and we have to keep huddled up together in our tents to keep from freezing to death. Our worn out clothing feels pretty airy in these cool breezes that come sweeping down from the Blue Ridge Mountains and makes us seek the warmest nooks we can find. A little rainstorm friday night was the cause of this sudden change from heat to cold. That night I was on guard around the camp it being six months lacking a week since I was on before, though I have been on picket a number of times since. /

There is no signs of our getting any thing in the shape of clothing as I can see, and there is no knowing when it will come to us. the men are beginning to need them the worst kind and I might say are beginning to suffer for the want of them. It is pretty hard to go so near naked as some of the men do and at the same time it makes considerable sport and fun. Parkhurst has about the greatest lot of rags hanging to him of any one in the co. both legs of his pants are slit from the bottom clear up to the crotch they have been sewed together again and again but the cloth has got so rotten that it wont hold together against much racket. he is pretty much all of the time engaged in pinning the strips and tying them together. I burst right out laughing this morning coming back from Sunday morning inspection. we were marching four deep and he was ahead of me and as he marched along I could look through the seat / of his breeches where they were ripped and through the front right down on the ground. They say that the rebel cavalry have made another dash across the Potomac and captured or destroyed our clothing and supplies. this is a camp story and you can take it for what its worth.

 

I received your letter yesterday morning written a week ago today. wonder if you have got mine the same time I did yours. I have had another siege of dreaming about home. when I dream of anything I make a business of it and keep it up a week or fortnight. A week ago last night night I dreamed of being home and have kept it up every night since not exactly the same one but every night I have been around there somewhere in the neighborhood. I wonder when it will be that I shall stand up by the stove I should like to well enough to night but think it is doubtful unless it is in imagination. I cant think of anything I want from home unless it is a box, and that would be rather hard getting over the road at present. I think we shall have to / walk over into Dixie again in a short time though. I had almost as lives go through purgatory as to go to that miserable state again. I dont see why we are allowed to lay still so long in the best part of the year when the roads are better than they are in any other part of the year. It will not be but a short time when it will be utterly impossible to move our artillery and provision trains then will be the time when they ought to let us be still. It seems the rebel cavalry have actually invaded Pennsylvania, and it would not be strange if they had been interfering with our breeches, and so on.

 

Last Friday we got orders to pack up all our duds leaving everything behind but our blankets and two days rations and be ready to leave but we did not go. But Howes Brigade went that night in the midst of a heavy rainstorm. All we knew about where we were going was what we could guess at but everyone thought it was for a reconnaissance, but it was all a mystery to us for all that, for we had not heard of the rumors of Stuarts Cavalry being this side the river. I rather think there is not much need of our presence to drive the rebels out or capture them 

 

            There is one of Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspapers in here with a few pictures in it of the scenes around Antietam battle field, some of which I saw with my own eyes. The date of the paper is October 18. and you can see them as I saw them by going down to Hams sometime when you are over that way. He used to take that paper when I was at home, and I guess he does now. The first picture is on the first page, and represents Pennsylvania and Maryland farmers viewing the field or portions of it. You take notice of that man lying on the ground nearest to the horses forward feet Our regiment lay on our faces in this place and I was about eight feet from this man lying down with the rest. this picture looks the most natural of any picture I ever saw taken of a battle scene. There is another one which represents the village of Sharpsburg this looks about as natural as any / thing can look we marched down the main street through the town and about a mile beyond and camped in a little grove where we staid till midnight and then turned around and came back through the town and off towards Williamsport. The old church looks pretty natural, though it looks rather too old. most all the buildings are built of logs and the spaces between filled with a kind of mud or mortar or some such stuff, but some of the putty accidentally got knocked out out of the cracks during the bombardment of the seventeenth

 

The next picture is "The Rebel Hospital" where you can see the soldiers lying in the straw I saw some here, dead, that were almost all covered up with hay and straw, done by men getting hay off the top to carry away. I thought at the time that some of them would get covered up and get lost and rot there. You can look at these pictures and know that they are just as it actually was on the field. and they are almost the only ones I ever saw in a paper that looked any where near as it did in reality, on the field.

SOURCES