Soldier's Letter, Civil War, 17th NY Regiment - July 17, 1861

 Chenango Telegraph, Norwich, NY, July 31, 1861

Headquarters, 17th Regiment, N.Y. Volunteers, Camp Lorilard?, Alexandria, Va., July 17, 1861

My Dear Rice:  'Tis nearly three months since our little band of Chenango Volunteers left your lovely village to go away to uncertain war.  Now, when spring has changed into summer, and we Chenango boys have been transformed into United States soldiers, and are actually treading the "sacred soil" of the "Old Dominion," in the very presence of our enemies, and near the places, perhaps on the ground, that is soon to be dyed in blood and put down in history among the great battlefields of the world.  I will fulfill the promise I made you on leaving, that I would write you a letter.

At 2 P.M., on Sunday, our Colonel received marching orders.  The men at once went to work packing their traps and loosening the pins to their tents.  In twenty minutes from the time the order was received, at a loud tap of the drum, the tents were simultaneously struck. Twenty-five four-horse baggage wagons carried our baggage to be shipped to Alexandria.  At 10 P.M. the Regiment embarked on two steamers and moved down the Potomac to Alexandria.  Arrived there about midnight and slept on the wharf the remainder of the night.  Monday morning we marched through the city to this camp.

Alexandria is a conquered city and is the most desolate looking place that you can imagine.  The people are nearly all secessionists, most of them who could get away having left. The places of business are closed, sentinels are on every corner, and the grass is growing in the streets.  It looks as though the curse of the Almighty rested upon it and it was doomed to rot into ruin with many of its people shut in their houses.  The citizens are not allowed to carry arms.  Our encampment is in a beautiful grove on a hill, about a mile west of the city.  Two companies occupy Fort Ellsworth, which is about a hundred rods in the rear of our camps.  It is a large earthwork, built nearly in the form of a star, the cannon being placed at the angles. Twenty-six sixty-four pounders and a number of rifle cannon open their black mouths over the parapets, ready to speak in tones of terrible warning to Alexandria or an enemy approaching from any other side and shower grape shot on their rebellious heads.  Those grape shot, by the way, are ugly looking things.  I think I had rather be excused from meeting a bag of them.

Manassas Junction is twenty-eight miles southwest of us.  Fairfax is on the road about half way to Manassas.  The troops are moving on rapidly to the latter place.  Seventeen Regiments passed here yesterday. As soon as they arrive there a battle will doubtless commence.  Everybody is expecting a great and decisive fight very soon.

If the Rebel forces are routed and driven back, our army will follow them up to Richmond.  If our army is driven back they will retreat to Fort Ellsworth, where they will  be reinforced by the 17th, which forms a part of the rear guard, and we will try and receive the traitors, as Tom Corwin, said he would have received the U.S. Army, in Mexico, had he been a Mexican, "with bloody hands, to hospitable graves."  The force gathered at Manassas during the day will be great on both sides. The enemy are strongly fortified.  The very cannon which battered down the walls of Sumter, are now planted on the fortifications at Manassas. Before this letter reaches you they may be throwing shot again at the American Flag, which, thank God, is now guarded by something more than a feeble band of starved patriots.  

Beauregard is at Manassas Junction, with "theysay," a hundred thousand men.  Our force will be forty or fifty thousand, so you see, allowing the reported number of the enemy to be half true, the odds are against us, and the fight will no doubt be a hard one.  Yesterday, the women and children left Alexandria.  Last night our men had thirty rounds of cartridges given them, their muskets were loaded, and they slept on their arms; most of the Co. was out yesterday on picket guard, to protect various public buildings, roads and the dwelling houses of Union men. They enjoy it finely.  Farmers gave them milk, in which they ate blackberries.  

Three or four of them were stationed in a College, which had been deserted.  "Fost." Sayles stood in the cupola to keep a general look out.  He said that when he came away from home, he didn't intend or expect to go to College, before he got back.  'Tis a capital place out that way to "find" things; one of the Corporals of our Company just made me a present of some nice earthen ware, that he found when he was on picket guard yesterday, else he had them presented to him, I don't know which.  I forgot to ask him.  Some of the houses of the FF.V's are left vacant and open to the weather.  One house, not far from here seems to have bene occupied by a minister, who had a "call" in some other place and went away without taking his library or private papers with him, else he left his library and papers for the benefit of Northern Abolitionists.  Some of the boys don't get as many letters as they want from home, so they appropriate some of these. The library of some 10,000 vols., will fade away before the insidious fingers of literary soldiers, unless they shut the doors soon.  

You must understand that officers of the company punish men severely if they are caught stealing; and if an officer is caught foraging he is court martialed and cashiered. The 17th regiment has the reputation here, as it has everywhere, of being the most orderly and best behaved regiment in the army.  An old gentleman told me this morning that it was a subject of general remark by the union people about here, that not a man of the 17th regiment had been seen drunk or had committed any depredations.

We have a most splendid camp ground overlooking the valley of the Potomac.  We are learning to live in tents and like it more and more every day. There is much of hard labor and much of privation in a soldier's life.  It is now stern reality and no playing soldier.  Company H was never in a better condition than it is today.

Our men who were on picket guard yesterday, have just returned.  They are full of mirth and have lots of stories to tell of their exploits.  Ensign Pellet is now reading a minister's old diary, that Sergeant H. brought in. The minister must have been a very devout and pious man.  Sergeant Hanson was invited to dine with a secession lady, but declined to break bread with an enemy.  The inimitable "Fost."came along the road where the other boys were, dragging a dead dog by the legs.  He said he had a "d---d secessionist"; the cursed dog stole his haversack and beef, and he just tried his musket on him and the dog dropped the haversack and fell down.

Col. L. says the Paymaster is to make us a visit tomorrow. We shall be greatly rejoiced to see him.  We are ready to receive what "Uncle Sam" may see fit to pay us.

Lots of love from Company H, to everybody in Chenango, to the girls especially.  

Truly Yours,  J.O.M.