Letter to Sarah Garibaldi (Poor)

Scope and content:

Written from "Camp Stonewall Brigade." Letter regards life in camp and general news.

Language:

English

Other descriptive data:

Camp Stonewall Brigade

Dear Wife
It is with pleasure that I seat myslef down to write you these few lines in order to let you know that I am well at this time and hope that when these few lines will come to hands they may find you enjoying Do.

At this time I have no news of any importance to tell you only that we have hard times and wars coming. Some thinks that we'll have peace before long, but I don't look for any peace during Lincoln administration and, if at the end of his term another president is elected belonging to the same party or he is reelected himself we may look for another four years of war.

I just received your letter of the 31 of July last from which I understand with great pleasure that you and the family was all well. They are commencing to grant furloughs now but they are granting so few that my chance is very poor for that. I hate to apply for one and besides there is some here that they have never been at home since the commencement of the war and I think them are more entitle to a furlough than I am and they will be the first ones to get it, but I am pretty shure that I will get one next winter. At this time they are only granting furloughs to two men out of every hundred, and when these two men will come back there will be but one going home out of the same number. The length of the furlough is only fifteen days. There is one out of our company going home this time. His name is Charles Gilliland and lives with Major Haynes. By next winter the furloughs will be more numerous and of longer time and then, perhaps, I will get chance to come home myself and I have no doubt I will come home sometime next winter.

Thomas Arrington sends his best respects to you and so does the Gilberts. John Hepler was slightly wounded at the battle of Gettysburg and we haven't seen him since. We are looking for him almost every day but he hasn't come yet. It is not known where he is, some says that he never crossed the river and that in Yankeedom yet but now don't know exactly where he is. He was slightly wounded in the arm, and he came from Gettysburg to the banks of the Potomac a distance of about fifty miles by himself and we surely thought he had crossed the river but since that time we heard that he never did.

I have no news to tell you at this time, only that we are camping here about Orange Court House and have been here for about three weeks and likely we will stay here good while longer yet and resting pretty well. There is no prospect of any fighting now, and some thinks that we will have no more fighting here or at least no big fighting and I don't think we will much more fighting here neither except we might have another big fight here and that it will be about the last. Some thinks that there is an armistice now, but unknown to us. I would be glad if this war was to stop so that we might all come and mind our business at home. I think if fighting will setlle this matter there has been fighting enough now, and if fighting wouldn't settle it, there is no use of any more bloodshed, for it is the general belief among the soldiers and in foreign countries that fighting can't settle it.

We have preaching here every day and three times on holy days. Yesterday was a feast day by the command of President Davis and there was a great many assembled around the altar for the purpose of worshipping God, and pray for peace, and there was good many ladies came to our camp to preaching from the neighborhood around here.

We have to pay thirty five cents pound for flour here now, one dollar dozen for ginger cakes and very small at that, dollar a piece for pies, dollar a dozen for apples, dollar a dozen for roasting ears, four dollars per pound for soap. The corn crop here looks very promising, the corn about here is of the best I ever saw and there has been rain enough during this summer about here to keep every thing from suffering. The people about here are just now beginning to plow for wheat, and I begin to think that I ought be at home to plant some myself, but I am afraid there will be no plowing done by me this fall.

Give my best respects to Mr. Lee Pursinger and to all the neighbors around you, to mother and Russia and keep a share for yourself and I'll remain your affectionate husband till death
John Garibaldi

Write to me and direct your letter to Mr. John Garibaldi, Co. C., 27th Regt. Va. Vols., Stonewall Brigade, Second Army Corps, ANV.

Subjects:

Confederate States of America. Army—Virginia Infantry Regiment, 27th
Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
Correspondence

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