Camp near Harrison's Landing Charles City Co. V^a

July 15/62

 

Affectionate Mother

[faded]

 

Jno Snyder's letters I have sent home? You do not know how much I miss him. O! I hope he will recover.

 

Last night all of our regt were out on picket and if it had not rained we would have had a fine time. I went out yesterday some two miles beyond the lines but found no rebs (as we call them) but if I found no rebs I found that which pleases me just as well viz. a field of blackberries, to which I helped myself and then being in need of a drink, it popped into my head that I must have drink anyway, and so I went to a house which was in the next field to the berry patch. This house I found to be occupied by a young couple of mulattoes which were free born, and with them I had a chat for a long while. I ascertained from them that the rebels carried all their slaves with them when they left these parts but that the free blacks preferred to risk the Yankees, though they were told that they would be sold / by the Yankees to the folks who live in Cuba.

 

While [faded] in the afternoon after I came in from my expedition there was a secesh woman came into our lines on her way to the mill, (at least so she said) and it became my painful duty to halt her and take her before the officer of the day and after hearing her story the officer gave her a pass so that she might go to the mill this however took so much time that she could not go that day, and I conducted her and her cart load of milling back through the lines!! Poor woman! she is left alone with six children. Her husband being a prisoner in Salisbury. I gave her the contents of my haversack and told her to teach her children to live on that which a Union Soldier lives on and to be loyal to the government of the U.S. She seemed to me so glad to get a little [faded]

 

There are various rumors in camp [faded] but I dont put any confidence in [faded] say that we are going to be disorganized and sent into the 63 regt but then again that Col. Campbel is going to be back in a few days and bring as many recruits with him as will fill up the regt. and when I came in off picket this morning I was told that our regt was ordered to fort Washington. this fort is in the state of Maryland on the Potomac. These reports cannot all be true, and it is more than probable that none of them are. We have signed the pay roll since morning and from this I expect four months pay. I would like to know how you and Jimmie get along with the harvesting. We stopped the [faded] in this part of the country and there are not as many secesh by several thousand to feed as there was 3 weeks ago. but it was awful to see the union batteries play in the [faded] indeed no man could / see their fellow being torn to atoms and think fun of it if they had any humanity about them. Why I saw swaths [faded] open all along the secesh line of battle, and the limbs and heads of them flying into the air and in spite of all this they would rush forward and fill up the space as fast as the shell & canister tore them open, but when night came O what a sight! the heavens were as bright as a flame of fire and the roar of the cannon was deafening.

 

In my last to Jimmie I asked for him to send me a few postage stamps but something is up, either he did not write or else all the others directed to me are mislaid, stopped or never started. All the rest of the boys get their letters as usual and why can't I? Is it possible that you care so little about "Wha'l be bicker bray"? If so, all I have to say is "long may she wave". James need not mind enclosing those stamps at this time of day for I think we'l be paid of about tomorrow and when I [paper fold] glad to call on him for assistance.

 

I should have written to Enoch Snyder and told him about Joshua but I do not know how to direct a letter to him. Please let me have his address in your next. Papers say that the Roundheads have been beaten [faded] battle on James Island. I'd like to know how Enoch is doing or if anything happened him.

 

            Recruiting is going on quite lively I suppose. Well the old [faded] for 40,000 more soldiers anyhow and there are families who are far more able to spare one of their number then ours was also they claim more privilege more land more involvement in office than our family [faded]. Strange to say, those men are the last to give a son to the cause of the country from which they expect so much. American big-boys hold all the military offices and most of the civil offices too but when it comes to fighting why then Irish, Dutch and Indians have to bear the brunt of the storm, is this not the fact? 

 

Report says now that our letters go no farther north than the fortress. If so, I beg pardon for what I said in the first of this letter, but the above is only camp talk and I dont feel inclined to think it true.

 

Dear mother how often I think of you and home. But I am not discontented or homesick You are aware that in the midst of danger such at least as a soldier has to face it is natural to think of home & friends. Did not you often think of your "Green Island Home" while you lay tempest tost in the ship far from land? Surely you did. Well how much more the soldier on the battle field who every moment may expect a furlow to his long home? I certainly think that with bodies might wind this war up at least again Autumn.

 

Dear Lizzie—come home every Saturday evening? [faded] "blustering Irish" folks?

 

Write as soon as this comes to hand and tell me all the news, sermons, sublime & ridiculous. I'm like the little boy who wished to know of his Pa how big Alexander was: that is, "I wish to know it all." George Williamson and Hy White are as big cronies as ever, I suppose [?] played out his soldiering in time to get clear of [?] exposure, but no doubt  it would be hard to convince such as him or Curt Emery or B. F. Ward or Cyrus Howe that they have only been a burden to Uncle Sam, nevertheless it undoubtedly is a fact. Is Bob M^cKnight home yet? I see in the "Herald" that he has gone north in the steamer. [faded] James Murphy will soon be able to return to duty but I hear that Joe Keister has his leg amputated so his soldiering is over. This is the last letter I shall write untill I get an answer for I think four letters deserve one answer.

                                                           

No more now; your Son J D Baker

Mamma                      

 

P.S. I have Lizzie likeness as good as ever.

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