Five Civil War Letters from Private Samuel Francis, Rhode Island Volunteers, Stationed in Virginia and North Carolina.
Virginia and North Carolina: 1862 to 1864. Five letters, totalling 14 pp, together with a poem, 3 pp, written home between 1862 and 1864 by Private Samuel Francis, Rhode Island Volunteers, 4th Regiment, Co. D, Infantry. Contents creased and toned, separation to much of upper fold of poem, hole through one letter wtih slight loss to text, another letter chipped with loss to text. Together with typed transcriptions of each letter. Includes four letters sent from "camp near Portsmouth, Va" in 1863 and 1864, where Francis was occupied in building fortifications, together with an 1862 letter from Bogue Island, NC (during the Siege of Fort Macon); the poem, a popular soldier's song titled "Flag of the Union, is dated 1862 at Beaufort (South Carolina). Francis writes about life in camp, the ongoing war, building fortifications and breastworks, and missing his family.:
"We have been very busy for the last week or two building a fot & we expect that we shall not finish very soon for when we get this done we shall have to build another but I had as live be a building fort as a fighting...I hope that the next that I send will say that Vixburg is taken...That will clean up this rebellion I hope...I think how glad you would be to see me come in. I think of you all every day. How I would like to come in about noon when you was all eating. Tell the girls that I think of them often."
"Yesterday (Sunday) we sat down to dinner, 4 of us, & had fried oyster cakes & sweet potatoes. In the afternoon we went in bathing in the Atlantic. The waves folled high above our heads. Had a fine time. Last night 10 from my company were detailed to go down & work on the breast works, a distance of about 4 miles. We got back to camp about 3 o clock this morning. One company went within 200 yards from the fort, we were about 3/4 of a mile. We expect tomorrow to commence the bombardment & we hope before night to have it taken."
He asks about family and friends back home and sends money home, requesting for various foodstuffs to be sent in return: "I have wrote to nancy to send me a box and I want you to send me a dollars worth of cheese;" "The chicken and cakes and apples and everything was all right nothing was disturbed in the box at all." He hopes the war may be over soon, and seems somewhat matter of fact about his chances in the War ("we think of having a great time here crismus if we are a live"). In his last letter, he asks his sister to find him a wife: "Nancy I want you to keep your eyes open for me and if you can see any young woman that is looking for a beau...tell her I am coming home next Fall and want to find a nice young woman for a wife." He also writes about taking sick in one letter: "I have not been very well this fall for I have had the chills and the ague several times...it is a very bad sickness to have out there in this part of the wild country." Item #9321
Price: $750.00