From the Ellsworth Regiment
Chenango Telegraph, October 9, 1861
Head Quarters People's Ellsworth
Regiment, Albany, N.Y. Oct. 4, 1861
We have a Colonel now, S.W. Stryker, who has acted as our Major since the organization of the Regiment, has been appointed our Colonel. No appointment could have been made so satisfactory to the whole Regiment as this. He is a competent officer and is worthy of his position. If you had witnessed the enthusiasm prevalent at his reception you would have needed no other assurance of his popularity. Our Lieut. Colonel is J.C. Rice, formerly Adjutant of the Garibaldi Guards. Our Major is James McGowan, a man of experience and ability who was tested in the Mexican war. our Adjutant, Knox, is the personification of activity. He is the smallest, but not least officer of the staff. He is every mon a military man. The chaplain of the regiment is not yet appointed. The applicants for it are numerous. Our staff officers so far, are men of merit, and no regiment has entered the field with superior commanders to those of the People's Ellsworth, the 44th. As to Captain of Co. D, we wouldn't exchange him for any officer whoever he might be. Nothing excites him; he is always calm and unmoved--a man of fine feelings but endowed with remarkable control over them.
The barracks are often set on the quivive by rumors of our departure and destination. We have been receiving our fatigue dress and been going "next week" for a month,--sometime to Virginia and sometimes to Missouri. This morning we are destined to Missouri, and are to start next Wednesday. Tomorrow we shall be bound southward and leave in 20 days. Thus it is--every one has his opinion of our future movements and after fostering it awhile it becomes a fixed fact and from idle gossip, rumors are not almost as unremarkable as the wind.
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