Same old camp. Oct^o.12.1862

 

I celebrated yesterday & today the birthdays of the season—with appropriate festivities and wish the women of the aforesaid birthdays many happy returns of the same.

 

            After a time of excessively hot days we have had a days rain and fall weather sets in severely cold—the camp fires instead of being built of cut sticks & fence rails—mount suddenly to the dignity of logs, and it seems to me that from whichsoever point of the compass the wind may chance to blow, it brings to my tent a fresh accession of suffocating smoke. My two blankets which last week were under me as I slept are now over me and surmounted by my overcoat will hardly keep me warm and we begin to think that winter quarters are becoming seasonable.

 

            The trees about are suffering. Not only for the supply of the fires but also for building purposes and the camp which at first was made of ground and rubber blankets is covered with board & log huts thatched cottages & all devices which encourage the idea of keeping out the cold and the rain.

 

            You have always been a little crazy, my dear wife, upon the subject of paper boxes, but here there is a passion for wooden ones. From them are made seats, tables, bureaus, beds and parts of / houses, and when one has fairly secured, but mysteriously lost any, his negro assures him that he used it for kindling. Negroes are a hated race in the army. I have wished a thousand times that I had a white servant & without Jackson I should almost suffer, but Jackson survives. The scamp picked up a London rifle which some Reb dropped on the battle field and I found him next day out in the front among the sharpshooters trying it. I asked if he had hit anybody and he said he didnt know certain but they showed him a bush where two of the enemy's sharpshooters had just hid and he fired "but only one came out and he was on the double quick"

 

            A week ago I went over to the field of the battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg) The graves were thick and the marks of the strife abundant. It seems a wonder that we should have been able to dislodge the Rebs and I feel sure that we outnumbered them. Gen M^cClellan has thanked our Corps for its brave support—the which makes me laugh as the men laid all day out of sight behind the ridges and did nothing.

 

            When I came back I found that the 32^d was in bad repute at all the Head Quarters but I am now all right with the generals except that Gen Griffin makes fun of my buckskin horse— / Poor Mack has been accused of being foundered, having the heaves and all sorts of ills but the fact is that he is as dainty about his food as a lady I wot of and since I got him some oats and hay he becomes happy & bright. Mr Cobbs horse still survives and is used by the Adjt pro tem, but he is in a most lean condition. The Major after using up my Mack fell back on Mr C's beast and made a great hole in his back—then took the "Ambulance horse" (Mr C. will know which I mean) and he died day before yesterday. The Major is now afoot and I advise him to buy a horse. It has been a tough time for quadrupeds as well as bipeds.

 

            Private Pratt of Co K. blew out his brains this morning, more shame to him for he left a wife & three children, and I declined to allow him the honors of a soldiers burial.

 

            Private Callahan of the same Company wants to be discharged on account of a lame foot—it was broken when he was a boy. The Doctor told him he ought to be hung—so Private Callahan told me today adding that he (Callahan) would die first—

 

            Private Callahan is an Irish tailor.

 

            Do you like this letter? I cant write anything else unless I say always that "I want to go home" which is forbidden in orders, but then dont say I must not love my wife or dream of her & the childers, to whom give love & believe me ever    Affy Yours

                                                                                                                       

Fran^s J Parker

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