Baltimore February 12^th 1864.

 

Dear Ham:

                        I shall write at present only in answer to your request for my opinion on the question of re-enlisting.

 

            It is a hard thing to advise others in a matter of so much importance, when health and comfort and perhaps life may be lost by following such advice, but yet I have an opinion, and will manage to let it out by degrees.

 

            I don't want to be like the man Orpheus Kerr tells about, who was willing to shed the last drop of his neighbor's blood, in behalf of the Union, and if necessary sacrifice his brother-in-law, but I really would be willing to enlist myself if the family could spare me. I think I would go with pleasure in spite of my health, and in spite of the privations, in order to have some part in putting down the accursed rebellion, but as you know I can not be spared. I was thinking the other day / that if you could get a commission and set apart about half your pay for mother, I would make a break any how. The war will surely not last more than two years longer, perhaps not more than one, or if it should linger out a longer time, the negro soldiers will suffice to give the finishing touch to the guerilla bands that may loiter here and there in the wilderness.

 

            The government will be very glad to reduce the size of its armies just as soon as possible on account of expense, and that reminds me that the bounties for volunteers who come in by the first of March are immense. I see handbills stuck on the fences round Baltimore in which 925$ are offered for veterans, $825 for 9 months men, and perhaps $800 for raw recruits. This of course includes National, State and City bounties, and is certainly about the biggest pay I ever heard of for private soldiers. If the war should close in a year it would be much better pay than I am getting for teaching school. Let us make a rough calculation. /

                                                                                                                        Months

                                                            $                                      or suppose     18

            Bounty for a raw recruit         800                              Bounty             800

            12 months @ $13                    156                              Pay                  234

            Rations, say 2$ a week           104                              Rations            156

            Clothing say                              90                              Clothing            135

                                                        $1150                                                  $1325

 

Perhaps I have calculated a little too high for rations and clothing, if so you can correct me, but there is one very serious drawback. If I should be killed the revenue would soon stop, and if I should lose what little health I have, the result would be about the same.

 

            You can judge from what I have said that I would be gratified to have you re-enlist, but without enlisting myself I could not conscientiously say to you in direct words that you ought to do it.

 

            You have already done well by your native land and are fairly entitled when your time is out to have an honorable discharge and enjoy the comforts of home if you desire it.

 

                        No more at present, but I remain

                                   

Your Affectionate brother

Geo. S. Grape.

 

All well at home.                                

 

Mother told me to write you that your letter had been received.

 

We are all well on the hill and send love—

                                                                       

Yours truly

G.S. Grape

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