July 22, 1863
.jpg "Bristo Station, VA")
.jpg "Bristo Station, VA")
.jpg "Bristo Station, VA")
KP2025.001.063
Bristo [Bristoe] Station Va, July 22nd/63
Dear Friends at home
Once more I write you from Old Va. I am well now but since I last wrote I have been sick two or three days. I have two letters to reply to Nos 38 &39 which I received the 19th & 20th. I am glad you continue in health & hope you Wm. may not be drafted.
We have heard here that there was to be 32 from Collins & am very anxious to hear who twill be. I hope it may fall on some copperheads if there are any such there. If that Mortgage is due next winter I want the horses sold in time to meet it & I will try to raise the rest and have it all paid up. Here it is half past eight P.M. & I have got another letter No. 40 with one for Joe & one from Hellen. I hope I shall continue to get letters every other day nothing will be better. You ask how I like Gen. Meade. So far I like him well. It makes no difference to me who commands us if the rebellion is crushed is all I ask. In your last letter you ask what has become of your rubber & poncho. I have them yet but the night we camped at Quincy the water came 4 inches deep where we lay & rubber & poncho was both flanked & once since then at Boonesborough the water outflanked Joe & I & came in 6 inches deep in a couple of hours. Give my respects to Cousin Nancy. I should think twould answer to let Sheldon have the more for what you said but Wm. knows better than I do. If you can get $30.00 for the wagon & seat let it go. Twill half pay debts. Joseph is not with me now. He left with others at Boonesborough Md back to Frederick Md with condemned horses & have net yet come up with us. Our Division is here. We have been 2 days coming from Harpers Ferry. We crossed 6 miles from Harpers Ferry at Berlin. Some of the army crossed at Harpers Ferry. Our Division has a hard fight at Shepherdstown Va. Our regt lost some, two from Co. H. that our Co. is squadroned with but our Co. came through safe. I was not there. I was left to get a new horse which I did. It is getting late & I must close for to night.
Thursday morn the 23d
All is quiet this morn with indications of our stopping here a few days. I am clear behind in the news for I have not seen but 2 newspapers since the battle of Gettysburgh [Gettysburg] but I guess to day they will come down from Alexandria. Those letters without Greggs Cav. Div. on came just as well. I have not seen my old acquaintances in other regiments since the battle. We get lots of blackberries nowadays. I don’t want any havelock as I know I am not subject to sunstroke. Sometimes I put green leaves in my hat but I have not seen any hotter weather yet than I was used to at home. Wm. I must again ask you to write more if you can when at home then write when you are away. The days and nights must be as long there as here & whether you are aware of it or not you have ten chances to my one to write. Maybe you think I stretch it but I have been a citizen and a Soldier too & I know. I don’t know where the rebs will make another stand whether they will succeed in getting to Richmond or get cut off at Culpeper & Gordonsville. I think there was another great mistake made in letting Lee get across the Potomac there was two days that our Army had him tight at Hagerstown but its reported here that twas Halleck’s fault letting him slide in giving him time to surrender but he got an awful whipping up in Pa & they have got it all around lately but they don’t know when they are whipped. If they did they would give up their sham confederacy but when you drafted fellows come may be they will quail.
K. Pearsons
Wm. & Harriett
[sideways first page] I have commenced to answer May’s letters but the mail goes at 8 & I can’t send it this morn.
July 23, 1863
.jpg "Bristoe Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bristoe Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bristoe Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bristoe Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bristoe Station, Va.")
KP2025.001.064
Bristo [Bristoe] Station, Va. July 23d 1863
My dear Niece E.M.P.
I am very glad you write so much to me & I hope you will keep on writing for tis the only way we have of visiting. I have three questions to answer one is whether Lotties bird has a pretty name. Yes, Blanche is a pretty name for a bird & Snow a very pretty name for Ida’s white kitten. Tell her to take good care of her kit & learn it to make a bow so it can salute me with a bow when I come home. You ask if I remember swinging & jumping from the swing at Hoseas. I do remember it well & I hope the time may come when I can have as many good times at home again as I ever have had. I have a chance May to see a great deal that’s new to me & if I return I shall have many a story to relate that will interest you and perhaps you may have some for me. I have just got me a new pair of boots. I have worn them that I got of Egbert Henry til now. They are not worn out but they got hard and hurt my feet. I have got me a nice watch. I bought one and traded once the one I have now has cost me $13.00. It’s a good deal better than no company. I have got me a dark grey almost brown horse now. He is about as large as my grey at home but not so nice. May can’t you and Ida get your Photographs & send to me in a letter. If I ever get a chance to get mine I shall do it. There are many harvest apples & red astricans [astrachans] in my orchard this summer. There is lots of peaches in Va & they will be ripe soon then I think I will have one good meal if not more of them. Tell your Pa that I have traded off the knife he sent me & paid 50 cts to boot and sold the one I got for $1.50 & while I think of it I want to write about letter No. 26 from home. Your Ma asked me if I had received it & I replied that I had got No. 25 but I was looking over her letter afterwards & saw twas No. 26 instead of 36. Now I have forgotten whether it was 25 or 26 but she will remember & if there is or was anything special in it tell her to rewrite it. Has Cousin Ann O. Bartlett returned from the west yet. Has Linneaus Wickham got well yet. Where did Jonases folks go to a circle & who was the Medium & what the manifestations. If you can’t answer all I ask tell your Ma to answer part. Please ask Silas Taft why he don’t write more to me tell him I wrote to him & Sheldon since I have received any from him & Sheldon & if you see Walter Allen tell him to write to me. July has been a very rainy month where I have been. We have had to march through mud instead of dusty, but I expect we will get a dry spell to pay for it before long. Well May I have had my dinner which was fresh beef fried with a little salt pork, coffee, dry crackers & ripe black berries with sugar & water on them which made a pretty good dinner for a Soldier & better than Soldiers have generally for many a time. I have been glad to get raw pork & crackers for my dinner. I hear cannonading this afternoon & hear that the two armies are fighting in the Shenandoah Valley but I don’t know how true tis. I’ve sold my watch this afternoon for twenty three dollars to Samuel D. Morell of Collins & taken his note due on our next pay day. Write what you can to me May & if I can’t write separately to you every time you may know that all you write is thankfully received.
From Your Uncle Kimball.
Elnora May Press
[sideways bottom of page] P.S. Friday morn the 24th. All is well this morning & hear that we are to take 3 days rations this morn and move at 8 oclock A.M. there was pretty hard cannonading in the Shenandoah Valley yesterday. We could here it plain but have not heard the result. There is six going from this regt to Elmira N.Y. after drafted men. Good bye for this time.
K.P.
[envelope]
Miss Elnora May Press
Gowanda, Catt. Co.
N.Y.
In care of Wm. H. Press
[envelope reverse]
Bristo[e] Station Va
July 23 1863
July 29, 1863
.jpg "Bealton Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bealton Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bealton Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bealton Station, Va.")
.jpg "Bealton Station, Va.")
KP2025.001.065
No. 44
Bealton [Bealeton] Station Va July 29th /63
Dear Brother & family
Day before yesterday I got yours No. 41 mailed the 26th & one from Cousin Drucilla the same time. I am very glad Wm. that you have taken up the farm again & hope you won’t let it rest so long again. I am suited with your sale of my mare to Sheldon & the money you get for her I want should be paid to Sister Harriett & for the grey horse too if you should have the luck to sell him. I should think if you could match any grey that you might make something by it. Wm. I hope you won’t get drafted for my Father had only 2 sons, you & I. One in the army at a time is enough, but if you should get drafted, try and get into this regt & I will show you how its done. Harriett you say when you get the pay for those cows that I must tell what I want done with the money. I think I have told, but will again; pay Ross the remainder of that note & then pay up all of my small debts. If you had sent me the amount in your hands & in Wms. & all the reckoning as I asked for I would have liked it very much but you say twill be coming in your next so I will say no more & wait patiently for your next. Please send me a receipt for what Fran brings if you have it. Joseph is not with me now he is somewhere at a dismounted camp, either at Berlin Md or Baltimore or Alexandria Va. I am keeping his letters for him. We have been doing picket duty on the Rappahannock at Freemans ford a few miles above Beverly ford. We got lots of black berries & milk here, but what’s worst we don’t get newspapers. I suppose the newsboys get all sold out before they get to us. Our forces are building a R.R. bridge across the river at Rappahannock Station & last night some Pontoons came down on the car so I think we will cross soon. I can’t write any news this time as I see. I have seen something in the papers about the mob in NY City, think it was a disgrace to the City & the only way they can atone for it will be to rally for the war. There goes the bugle to pack up so I can’t write any more now.
The morn of the 30th
Our Brigade is here between Warrenton & Manassas Gap some 4 miles from Warrenton. We marched 15 miles yesterday. The 3d, 5th, & 6th Corps of Infantry lay around here & I don’t know what others, but I did not see any one that I knew. There is 6 or 7 from the regt gone to Elmira, N.Y. for drafted men & I guess some from each regt here will go to their own state after conscripts. We had one of our Co taken prisoner. He was an orderly for Gen. Greggs & carrying a despatch [dispatch] & there has been none killed. One accidentally wounded and how many do you guess there is to day with the regt. (I mean of our Co) there is 18. The regt are scattered almost as much as they were before they enlisted. There has been between 15 & 20 discharged, one skedaddled, some scattered as orderlies, Hospital nurses, teamsters & quite a number in Hospitals & the rest at dismounted camp. Our Capt. is sick & has not been with us for over a week. Toot…goes the bugle to saddle up. I’m saddled ready for a start tis a quarter to seven. I don’t know where we are a going, whether in front for picket duty or a reconnaisance [reconnaissance]. I guess the latter for there is only our Brigade along. I don’t know where the rest of our Division is. One of the 1st Me boys has written a song about our raid. I send one. I am going to let some Infantry men have this letter this morning & put it in their mail bag. When we are marching we have no chance to send mail only as we happen to pass camps. There, I’ve filled this sheet, take it for what its worth. It seems to me like a poor letter.
From your Soldier Brother
Kimball
[upside down] You need not be afraid of writing too often to suit me.
[envelope]
Mr. Wm. H. Press
Gowanda, Catt Co.
N.Y.
[envelope reverse]
#44
July 29 ‘63
Bealton Sta.