Franklin: John Smith to Grandmother, March 6 1863
Summary:
Smith describes camp life and remarks upon the terrible winter weather. He goes
on to complain about the war's length, angrily questioning the motives of
"rebels" and complaining about Virginia's terrain. Smith concludes by recounting
a recent skirmish with "rebel" forces. He goes out of his way to mention seeing
a "dead rebel."
March 6th 1863
Camp of the 16th Pa Cavalry
Dear old Grandmother
I have [illeg.] seated myself to write you A few lines to let you no that I am well and hardy [illeg.] I hope you
are all enjoying the same helth and happiness and
further - I have been writeing to the other friends
but I never wrote to you yet I allways neglected it
and in fact I have hardly time to write we are on duty that I hardly get time to
write we have verry hard times now the men and horses
are dying the wether is verry
unhelthy about 2
cleer
days in A week
[page 2]
and we go on picket 4 days in A week. we got
out 10 miles from camp and then we must lay out 3 nights in A week no matter how
bad the wether and the wether is as cold here as it tis up there and more snow we have had A
great deal of snow this winter so we are exsposed to
great deal of cold wether and then thats not all we dont get our full rashens we suffer for the want of more to eat and we
cant
buye anything for we have no money we never got any pay
yet scince we are out and [unclear: no] hopes
of geting any yet
[page 3]
and further this war is
A qear thing to me there is no hopes of it coming to an
end yet evrything
seams
[unclear: to] wrong I still had some hopes of it coming to A close but I
exspect to put in my 3 years now and I dont see what they are fighting for and another thing as
long as our army stays in Virginia they will whip the rebels for A country like
this for its nothing but woods hills and mountains this
is an awful cuntry if I could get out of it I would
stay another day if it rains A half a day the roads gets that mudy that we can
[page 4]
hardly get A
long we [illeg.] out on A scout last week we was goin 2 days & A half and we
[unclear: went] 30 miles from camp and the mud was up to the horses knees and we [illeg.] mud all over and
it [illeg.]
[illeg.] the time [unclear:
wer
] out we wer after the rebels but we dit not get any they drove our pickets in took several
prisners and killd
several but the rebels lost more then we dit I seen one dead rebel he looked [unclear: hard]
[illeg.]
from your friend
John Smith
Answer soon and direct
John Smith
[illeg.]16th Pa.
Cav.
Washington
D.C.
