Camp Anna, Va.                    

July 12^th (Sunday) 1862

 

My dear wife

                        I have received almost together your letters of July 3 and 8^th.

 

            Say everything to me to keep me in the army say nothing to prevent it. If I live it will be a blissful day that gives me back to my family and friends. If I die it will be but anticipating a little the hour of my end. Tell all who have friends in the army to encourage them and to steel their hearts to the performance of duty.

 

            A few months perhaps weeks will decide if we may have in our country perpetual peace or perpetual war. The decision hangs in the balance and the weights are fine.

 

            The day that I arrived here it was known in certain circles here that capitulation had been talked of. Upon our arrival we were hurried into position with the reserve upon ground where the shells of the enemy had fallen but an hour before and our path to the ground was through / a mob of demoralized soldiery—wounded—hungry and cowardly men cried out tauntingly at us that we should be used up before night—that we didnt know what we had got into & voices from other regiments enquired "how's your patriotism now"

 

[margin note referring to section "a mob" through "patriotism now": This is what you need not repeat]

 

The clay mud was actually knee deep—men lost their boots & stockings in the mud and could not find them—and all agree that the footing was the worst the army had ever seen—but the 32^d went through it all manfully—and at night after marching through two miles of mud they turned into a wood made beds of green corn and branches and went to sleep singing and laughing.

 

            Now we have our tent equipage and are the best provided of any regiment—our camp is the neatest and I think the healthiest of any and we get regular rations—instead of hard bread as at first.

 

            These stories about regiments being cut up are horrid, the 22^d reputed cut to pieces lost only one officer killed. The 1^st Mass which reported only 175 men left has 800 upon its roll! Martins battery which had the warmest encomiums of the General lost but 1 man killed!! / The total loss of the army in the battle week was only 11,000 (and it yet numbers 70,000 effective men) and this last item keep to your self.

 

            We have a good many men ill with diarrhea &c but only a few in hospital. I have been hardly troubled at all and am well now. [scratched out] is [scratched out] again. Some [scratched out] made him very dumpy at one time.

 

            My boy Martin has run away—and I dont blame him.

 

            This morning I had a long chat with Chartres Sawtelle—he is worked very hard & feels it more than I could wish, but it is pretty well after all.

 

            We discoursed of trouting in Maine.

 

            On two points the army is unanimous. all want to go home and all curse the abolitionists.

 

            The Rebs bother us a little by firing into the transports in the river but otherwise we hear little of them.

 

            The country is beautiful but New England with all its drawbacks is a more wholesome one to live in.

 

            Dear love from me to the family & the warmest love for yourself & may God give us again a happy meeting            

 

Adieu.             Frank

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