CIVIL WAR LETTER - 16th Maine Infantry - Soldier Captured by Rebel Guerrillas !

Description

CIVIL WAR LETTER
Co. C, 16th Maine Infantry
This Civil War soldier letter was written by Albert Church Brown (1843-1922) who was mustered into
Co. C, 16th Maine Infantry
as a conscript on 15 August 1863. Albert was the son of John Hanson Brown (1814-1886) and Sarah Copeland Heywood (1819-1904) of Smyrne, Aroosktook county, Maine. The Brown family had previously lived in Winslow, Kennebec county, Maine.
Albert was twice married. He married Lorena Hawkes (1844-1886) in 1870. After her death, he married (in 1889) Almena W. Knight. Albert earned a living after the war as a clerk in Boston, Massachusetts, and then worked in the “produce business” in Malden, Middlesex county, Massachusetts.
Post-war image of Albert C. Brown
Transcription
Headquarters 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
5th Army Corps
January 12th 1865
Dear Aunt,
Your letter arrived safe to hand yesterday morning and I was very glad to hear from you as usual. I have no news to write, still I thought I would write a few lines just to let you know that I am well and getting along finely. My duties are quite easy here at present and I have considerable spare time. I hardly know what to do with myself sometimes. It is a very dull life to lead. There is nothing going on and no place to go to pass away the time. Still I manage to content myself very well as long as we are not fighting nor on the move.
I have not heard a word from my friend who came up missing on the raid. There is no doubt but what the guerrillas got hold of him. I hope they did not kill him for if he was taken prisoner he will stand some chance of getting home again.
The weather is very pleasant here now. There is no snow on the ground and it seems more like April than January. There is a vast difference in the weather here and in Maine. I had no idea of it until I came out here. One of my tent mates (a Pennsylvania chap) started for home day before yesterday. He had served his three years and got an honorable discharge. He thought he should be contented to stay at home a spell now.
You ask me how I like my tent mates and say you can form no idea of how we live. I like my tent mates very well. I don’t know as I can tell you how we live so you will know any more about it than you do now. A little log house, ten feet long by seven wide, five feet high from the ground to the eaves, and covered with tent pieces, a door in the center on one side and fireplace opposite. The bunks in one end one above the other and wide enough for two. In the other end a gun rack, a table, and place to hang canteens, haversacks, and equipments. Under the bunks we use for a wood box. There is a wide shelf over the fireplace—let me see what is on it; plates, knives, forks, spoons, dippers, ink bottles, pipes, brush hatchet, candle and old bayonet. A couple of frying pans hanging under the shelf and two or three stools, axes, spades, and kettle kicking about the floor and plenty to eat, drink and wear. There, can you form any better idea of how we live?
I have exhausted all my ideas so I will close for this time. Give my love to all hands and accept a good share yourself. Write as soon as convenient.
From your nephew, — Albert C. Brown
Miss Mary P. Brown, Hallowell, Maine
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