Mill Creek General Hospital Aug 24
Dear Mother
    I am still here and about the
same as when I last wrote the doctors here
dont seem to know how to take hold of
the diarrhea here the climate here is so
much different from what they are
accustomed too.  Our regt. left Newport
News last week for Acquia Creek as
nigh as I can learn received letters
from them one from you one from Westford
and one from York, Pa. I have not received
that box yet but will as soon as I join
my regt. I was glad to hear of your
surprise in the shape of a cow and all
the other fixins as it is what you have
needed so long I did not think the
people there would spend so much
as there must be considerable draft on
their purses to pay the bounty
did they take the old man Coulter
as one of the valiant men of Needham
I thought Nat Bowditch had gone back
long ago. I think Asa wont suffer
much for wine if it keeps coming in

[page 2]
at the rate you speak of.  I think that
was considerable of a joke on Mr Patten
but who was sensible enough to get it
up.  I am in hopes that with Popes Burnsides
& McCellans army joined together will
soon take Richmond and settle up
this horrid & bloody war as it might
have been settled if the Army of the
Potomac had not been split up
last spring but had gone right on
by the way of Manasses and
Gordonsville as we had force enough
to have swept their army at that
time to destruction. I just left off writing
on account of a great singing on the
road which proved to be a negro
funeral they went up to the grave and
down back singing and if it had not
been stormy and my being writing I
should have gone up to the grave
Tell Homer I found one of them
little howlgoublins in my letter but
did not do as they told me as we
dont wear such things in our buttenhole
Tell him I wish I could have been
up there with him but if wishes
were horses &c &c. Tell Ann I shall

[page 3]
look with impatience for that
long letter she promised me telling
all about the good time she had at
Westford & Acton and what they said
was the reason for their not writing to
me before.  The drum and fife are passing
playing the funeral march as they carry some
poor fellow from the hospital we are not
in the hospital building but in tents
put up for temporary accommodations
of the least sick here but they will
begin to send off those who are able
to do duty just as soon as the regt.
get stationary and they receive orders
Give my respects to all enquiring
friends and my love yourself
                  From your aff son
                                 Wm Wallace

[on envelope]
Mrs. E. Smith
Newton Lower Falls
Mass.

[on side of envelope]
Soldiers Letter
J R Bronson
Surg in Charge

MSS 15360

[from the “war journal” of George Hazen Dana as compiled by him at a later date from wartime letters and diary entries]

 Barnetts Ford, Rappahannock River,
                                          Aug. 24th 1862.
We left Harrison’s Point on the night of the 14th inst.
marched out about two miles from camp, spread our
rubber blankets on the ground in the road, and slept
till 4 in the morning, when we started on one of the
longest and most tedious marches on record, going
on foot all the way down the Peninsula to Newport
news – about 100 miles, where we took transports and
ran up the Chesapeake and Potomac to Aquia
Creek.        Here we took the cars – cattle trains –
to Falmouth where we encamped for a night
and a day, and at 9 o’clcok at night were again

started off on the march, proceeded three miles, halted
and slept ( I at least did, and soundly) on the open
road in a drenching rain.        At 3. A.M. we
again started and marched 24 miles to our present
position.        Here we found the Rappahannock
so swollen by the rains that we could not get across.
Thank God!  At last we have found a place of
rest.        We left many on the road, footsore and
exhausted, our Captain among the number (at
Falmouth), so I am now in command, and shall
probably be so when we go into action.        The men
like me, and we get along very well indeed.
When the river goes down, we shall probably cross
the Rapidan River.        We have an immense force
concentrated here now, so the rebels must look out.
There was heavy cannonading going on about ten
miles above us on the Rappahannock all day
yesterday, but with what result we can get no idea –
we must wait for home papers to find out.
Think of that!        There is one consolation for us
now.        They can give us no more very long
marches without a fight, as the rebels are very
near us.        So send a paper once in a while,
so that I can see what they are doing a quarter
of a mile from us.

We arrived here night before last in a drenching
rain storm, and in one place had to pass through
the water waist deep.        I am in excellent
health, now, though I was very feverish two
nights on the march, and sprained my foot
badly, so that I had to carry my sword on my
left arm and use a cane.        The sprain is
about well now.        If they let us alone for
two days more, our men will be in a hundred
per cent better health than before leaving
Harrison’s Landing – that horrible grave yard.
Our Colonel is sick with a fever in Baltimore.
I trust he will join us soon.

[transcript by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 5130

[from the diary of Ephraim A. Wood, Co. C, 13th Massachusetts]

Sunday Aug 24  Marched early this
morning.  About within sight of
Warrenton and then cut across the
fields to the road going to the
Spring and marched again towards
the river  We camped about three
miles from the town making
our march about six miles
I went to a brook had a swim
and washed my shirt

[transcript by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 12021

   
[from the diary of Charles Hay of the 23rd Ohio]

Relay House, Md., Aug. 24.
     We leave here the Balto. & O. R.R., being
within 9 miles of Baltimore, its eastern terminus.
We ‘switch off’ here at what is usually
called Washington Junction, and immediately
cross the Patapsco, over a fine arched bridge.
An accident occurring at Berlin, 5 miles
east of Harper’s Ferry, to a train in our advance.
we were delayed, so that, at this time,
(sunset) we might have been in Washington, 31
miles distant, had the accident not happened.
At Berlin and Point of Rocks stand the
abutments & piers of two bridges across the Potomac,
which is there a fourth of a mile wide.
They have been destroyed since the war commenced.
     At Ellicott’s Mills, 5 miles back, we were
greeted with shouts and welcomes, hundreds
lining the sides of the road, pretty girls
preponderating, they being no less patriotic than pretty.
The only disposition towards ‘secesh’, I noticed was in a
two girls walking with together one of whom when the soldiers
commenced cheering, turned her back towards us, while,
the other, though evidently a sympathizer, chided her companion for the insult.

 [transcript by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 13925                                                                            

[from the diary of James Dinsmore Templeton, musician and private in the 23rd Ohio]

Sunday, Aug 24, 1862

waked up this morning
at Martinsburg a pretty
went on to the cars &
rode passed through a
very pretty country–
have just passed Harpers Ferry
the place or what remains
very pretty the scenery very
wild & picturesque
Passed through a beautiful
country at the Relay
house 9 miles from
Baltimore we took cars
for Washington where
we arrived about
midnight. Slept on
the top of the cars.  After passing
point of rocks we passed through
a beautiful valley  found seve
ral bridges destroyed on the
way.  mostly clear pleasant.

MSS 10317 

[from the diary of Anne Madison Willis Ambler]

Another Sunday spent at home
how uncivilized it is to stay from church
Sunday after Sunday.  War is a momentous
leveller.  we are all poor alike now–
no horses, no driver, & those that have them
are afraid to use them, as they may be
taken from us in the road or at church
Read[?] as much as usual—–

Pa returned from the depot with the
news that a party of sixty men had
torn up the tracks captured & burnt
the cars taken eight Yankees prisoners & then
gone on to Smithfield surprised & taken
27 men & horses amongst them the Lieut
Capt brought here Monday–I can but
rejoice at it-though Pa thinks they will
visit vengeance on the people around-
– there was a large no of their cavalry
scouring the country to day, but our
men are far enough away, they
took up one man for saying he knew
who they were

[as transcribed in 1972 by her granddaughter Anne Madison Wright Baylor]

MSS 15406

[from the diary of Eliza Oswald Hill, refugee from Wilmington, N.C.]

Sunday, 24  Quite cloudy & threatning rain–But we all
went to Church in the morning–In the afternoon I read a
pretty little book called “The Angel over the right shoulder.”
It is a tract calculated to do much good–If we could all re
-collect when we were going to say an unkind thing–or do
a sinful act–or think evil of others that the Angel on
the left shoulder was marking it down-& the Angel on
the right shoulder grieved about it–we would leave
undone what we ought not to do–Do what we ought to do–
That the good angels Register might be the longest–very
few ventured out to night–It look dark & threatning.

MSS 6960

[from the diary of William M. Blackford, bank officer and former diplomat with five sons in the Confederate Army]

Sunday 24  It rained very hard last night
and at intervals most of the day
was exceedingly tired and I took a good
rest, lying on bed & couch till 4 P.M.
which refreshed me much.  Read in
British critic a scathing review of
Moore’s Life of Byron.  It presented
some new facts & new views and cer-
tainly put gives Byron a most detes
table character.  It proves he was no
gentleman–It would not have mor-
tified him to be told to his face that
he was a profligate–an adulterer
a rake–and the latter period of
his life a drunkard–but he would
have resented a  contrairer the impu
tation that he was not a gentleman
and yet his conduct to his wife was
not that of a gentleman or an hon-
-est man.–Called at Sue’s in the
evening–at night went to the Bap
-tist church & heard an excellent
sermon from Dr. Ryland of Richd.

MSS  4763

[from the diary of Jesse Calvin Spaulding, Co. F, 25th Massachusetts]

Saturday
Aug 23
Read and occupied myself as usual
to-day–Went down in swimming this
afternoon.

MSS 11293

[from the diary of Lancelot Minor Blackford of the Rockbridge Artillery]

Saturday, Aug 23/62–To night we lie again within a mile
of the main branch of the Rappahannock, in Culpeper county,
but within 1 1/2 miles of the Fauquier W. S. Springs.  We have had
a toilsome journey of about a dozen miles.  After a good nights
rest, undisturbed by rain, we moved off for this point.
We travelled unusually fast as fr as the village of
Jeffersonton 2 miles above this point.  There we halted a
couple of hours.  A few miles after starting we forded
the Hazel river, a branch of the Rappahannock, a consid-
erable stream.   At Jeffersonton I was fortunate enough to
meet with one of the residents, Mr. Davisson, whom I knew
with his family very well in Powhatan in ’54-’55.  He kindly
invited me to dinner–an excellent one-which I enjoyed hugely.
and urged me to call again.  Our rations gave out last night
so the dinner was really a windfall.  Heavy rain this afternoon

MSS 5088