Union News, Union, Broome Co., NY, January 22, 1863
Head Quarters, 137th Reg't. Camp near Fairfax Station, Va., January 12th, 1863
Friend Benedict: Thinking a line from a soldier boy would be acceptable in your place, I will attempt to give you a few lines from the 137th. You have undoubtedly ere this heard of our departure from Bolivar Heights and you many be sure that a happy lot of men left the Heights on the morning of Dec. 10th, for we had lost so many comrades there that the very name of Bolivar Heights was enough to make the heart of the strongest man in the army leap into his throat for no one knew what the morrow would bring forth. If a man was well and hearty one day, he might be on his death bed the next. We left there with the intention of going direct to Fredericksburgh and after marching seven days, we arrived at Dumfries, within forty miles of Fredericksburgh, when we were ordered to take the back track as far as Fairfax Station and wait for further orders and we are still here waiting, and I have fairly come to the conclusion that there is a screw loose somewhere in this Government Machinery.
Here we are - officers as well as privates - out of money, out of clothes and to sum the whole thing up, entirely out of patience. No doubt the people at the North blame the men for deserting from the army, but when they come to know the whole facts and take into consideration that quite a large portion of the army is composed of poor laboring men who have come here and enlisted for the defense of their country, leaving (many of them) large families at home, dependent entirely on the scanty pay allowed soldiers for his support, I say no honest person can blame a man of this kind, when they learn that they receive no pay for four, six, eight and some of them even eleven months and many of them not clothes enough to cover their nakedness, although the northern press are always praising how well the army of the Potomac were clothed. We have plenty to eat, but there seems to be something wrong about pay and clothing.
The boys in the Regiment are generally healthy, only about one hundred on the sick list that are now present. The rest are in Hospitals at different places. We now muster six hundred and sixty officers and privates. Some officers have resigned, some have gone north on a leave of absence, and some have gone without any leave [-unreadable-]. Our Colonel is on a leave of absence at Binghamton, and our adjutant also started for home this morning, and I understand he has resigned, although I do not tell this for a truth. But one thing I do know, and that is there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in the army.
So far as my humble self is concerned, I have been very much favored since I came into Virginia. I am now occupying the position of Commissary Sargeant which brings me into the non-Commissioned Staff and is rather a difficult position to hold, for I either have to please or displease every officer and private in the Reg't.
We have had the most beautiful weather as a general thing, since we left Binghamton, that could possibly be imagined. We have had very little or as it might properly be called, no cold weather and not much more rainy weather than cold. In all the marches we have made we have had one snowstorm that was quite a severe one to the men and on our last march it rained for a few hours one morning. Since we left Bolivar, there has not been snow enough where we have been to whiten the ground and there is no frost in the ground at all, but citizens tell me it is an exceedingly warm winter here and think they are highly favored by Providence.
More anon. Stall
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