Franklin County: Samuel W. North to His Father,
[date unknown]
Summary:
In a discussion of camp life, North talks about the surplus of coffee and the
mistreatment of horses.
Father
Dear Father
I received your letter of the 4th inst on yesterday morning
and one from John dated the 7th which I received yesterday
evening and was glad to hear that you are all well. We are still in our old camp
although we don't know how soon we may leave it. The
weather is unusually fine for the time of the year. it rained some, day before
yesterday, and the roads and walks are very muddy. Still
it has been an unusually fine winter for camping out. Jacob and I are in our
usual good health. the company generally are in good health. We have been living
on the best the government has we have been drawing plenty of our regular pork
beans crackers coffee & sugar with occasionally extras of potatoes or
rice onions or dry Apples and vinegar. We get more coffee than we can make use
of we have at least five pounds of it ahead in our mess. it is not exactly pure
but still it makes excellent coffee. I wish I had some way of getting some of it
home. I hate to see it wasted as it is very dear now at home. but uncle sam pays
for it. and his property is destroyed on all occasions. I often see horses which
have been condemned and driven off to die hanging round trying to get a mouthful of hay some of them
are really sound young horses with nothing wrong with
them [deleted: but] but bad usage and want of feed. they founder a
good many of their horses by feeding too much corn. most of the drivers have not
as much humanity about them as their horses they drive at a fast trot and I have
seen whole trains going at a full run. so you can have some Idea of the wear and
tear in that line. We had quite an explosion in front of our camp a few days
ago. our division
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[illeg.]
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affair. I wish I could stop thinking of it but I saw things there
which seem to be stamped on my brain. tell John I will answer his letter in a
few days tell mother and the girls to write often and if you have the time to
spare I would like to hear from you too.
Yours Affectionately
S.W. North
