Chenango American, Greene, NY, January 9, 1862
Letter from J.W. White, 5th Regiment, Sickles Brigade
Camp Morgan, Md,, Liverpool Point, Dec. 29, 1861
Editors American: You will confer upon me a favor for which I will be ever grateful, by granting me the privilege, through your paper (which I see every week when I don't miss of it) of expressing my warmest thanks to those of my friends in Greene, to whom I am indebted for a box of luxuries, which I received day before yesterday, in good order. The clothing was just the thing I needed; and as for those quilts (with many thanks to the donors) they are the right thing, in the right place, and at the right time. The cake and other luxuries is a feast of fat things I assure you, after having been kept for more than eleven months on iron bound crackers; but what adds value to it all, is the fact that it comes from kind friends at home.
We are now encamped on the banks of the Potomac, about fifty miles below Washington. The river is so wide here that king cotton cannot shoot across into our camp. Just below and also above where we are stationed he has his batteries erected, and as our vessels pass them, he howls most ferociously, but some how the arrows from his bellowing engines of death, very seldom take effect upon the object of his wrath, but fall into the troubled waters of the Potomac or bury themselves in the ground as they strike on the Maryland shore. We are yet living in our summer tents, but are now building winter quarters. The weather has thus far been of the most favorable kind, yet we have had some days and nights which were not very pleasant for soldiers. I fancy it would be quite a novelty to you who are accustomed to sit by a warm stove at your quiet homes these long December nights, to visit our camp and see how soldiers live. It is an old adage that necessity is the mother of inventions; and I am sure no one would doubt the truth of it after visiting one of our camps. We all have fireplaces in our tents' some of them are built of mud and others of logs and sticks plastered with mud. Some of them work very well while others smoke about as much at one end as the other. My chum David Hetzel of Norwich says, tell them while we warm one side, the other is highly entertained with a kind of music which the wind makes while blowing through the holes in our tent.
I have been in no battle yet and hope I will not be, until I can know whether I am fighting to crush out rebellion or to build up the accursed system of human slavery.
My health is good. I weigh ten lbs more than when I left the pleasant village of Greene and turned my face toward the land of traitors.
J.W. White
Washington, D.C., 5th Regt. Sickles Brigade, Company C
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