Elbridge Howe to Harriet C. Stevens, 10 September 1864
                                                                                                            Before Petersburg
                                                                                                                        Sept 10th 1864
 
Dear Friend Harriet.
                                    I take the pen once more to write you. guess you had begun to think that I was not going to write you again. Since we left Deep Bottom we have been unsetled and had considerable to do and so I have neglected all my corrispondents but excuse me this time and I will try and bee more prompt in the future. You have no doubt heard the particulars of our fight at Deep Bottom and probably a better discription / of it than I could give you and as it is not a very plesant subject to write of so will not try to discribe it.
 
We are about three miles from Petersburg. The rebels shell our camp about every day but we have built breastworks and boomproofs so but very few get hit by their shell we had one man hit today and slightly wounded. I see John M nearly every day. He was here and spent the evening last night. Their signal station is not over a half mile from our camp. He took considerable pains to come and see me. came when we were at Deep Bottom a distance of fifteen miles. I heard a few days ago that Albert was quite sick. do you hear any thing about him.
 
I wrote you a while ago that there was some signes of my coming / home this fall but the Government have concluded to pay us the bounty. we received it about three weeks ago. So now shall have to put off going untill January 1867. Only two years and four months. but we are in hopes that this cursed war will bee over before another fourth of July so we all can come home.
 
            You enquired of me if I knew any fellows in the 10th Army that advertised in the waverly for corrispondents. I do know one by the name of Clark and he has found a corrispondent in E. B. He received a hundred and fifty letters in one week.
 
I understand that there has been two or three marriages in Brookfield of late. I should think the young people were crasy to get married when every thing is so high perhaps they are afraid they will be higher. I heard that Ida Bemis / was going to bee married is that the case. I realy hope they will not all drop off. hope a few will wait for the Soldiers to return.
 
            I saw a Fellow hung a few days days ago. He belonged to the 7th Conn Regt. He was hung for shooting one of his comrads in battle. it was the most painful sight that I ever saw and I thought I had seen some pretty hard ones before.
 
Excuse this miserable writing for this is the poorest pen that I ever tried to write with. if I had not some christian prinsiples left I should have used some profan language before now
 
            Yours &c &c &c
                                    Elbridge Hume
                                    Co I 24th Regt Mass Vols
                                    10th Army Corps Va
2844
DATABASE CONTENT
(2844)DL058149Letters1864-09-10

Letter From Sergeant Elbridge Howe, 24th Massachusetts Infantry, Before Petersburg, Virginia, September 10, 1864, to His Friend Miss Harriet E. Stevens, East Brookfield, Massachusetts; Accompanied by Cover


Tags: Artillery, Bounties, Camp/Lodging, Courtship, Executions, Fighting, Homecoming, Illnesses, Injuries, July 4th, Marriages, Siege of Petersburg, War Weariness

People - Records: 2

  • (690) [writer] ~ Howe, Elbridge
  • (691) [recipient] ~ Stevens, Harriet Converse ~ Howe, Harriet Converse

Places - Records: 2

  • (1) [origination] ~ Petersburg, Virginia
  • (630) [destination] ~ East Brookfield, Worcester County, Massachusetts

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SOURCES

Elbridge Howe to Harriet C. Stevens, 10 September 1864, DL0581, Nau Collection