A Minor War History Compiled from a Soldier Boy's Letters to "the Girl I Left Behind Me": 1861-1864

Chapter 76: LXXIII

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About This Book

A series of wartime letters written between 1861 and 1864 to a loved one presents an intimate account of camp routine, marches, garrison duty, and occasional skirmishes, emphasizing comradeship, small talk, humor, and the routine hardships of soldiers. The editor removed strictly personal matters and arranged the correspondence into sketches that preserve individual personalities and camp anecdotes, recording everyday details—meals, guard duty, uniforms, morale—rather than grand strategy, and offering a ground-level portrait of military life and memory.

LXXIII

Camp near Alexandria, Va.,

October 30, 1862.

FIVE minutes ago I received a letter addressed in your familiar hand. Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds ago I tore open the envelope. I extracted, first, a note, which I supposed you had inclosed from Mary. I opened it. “Dear Brother” stared me full in the face. The note surely was not for me, but for brother James—just your carelessness, sending it with the wrong letter. I unfolded your letter, and—what!—“Dear Brother!”—there it was again. The whole huge joke was clear. I hope James was not as grievously disappointed when he got my letter as I was when I got his. I return it, unread if not unopened.