Colorful Correspondence
Here is a funny endorsement on the back
of a letter dropped into a city post office addressed to a recently appointed
quartermaster in one of the New England regiments: "Harry, I hear you are
commissioned as a quartermaster and can save $1,000 a year. Why didn’t
you go in for a whole one, and make
$4,000?"
Among the letters found by one of our soldiers in the rebel camp on Roanoke Island, was one from a young lady in the South to her lover in the rebel army, in which she says: "I hope we shall see each other again here; but if we do not, I hope we shall meet in heaven, where there will be no Yankees."
A love letter picked up at Manasses Wednesday conveys the information to a man in the Rebel army that his sweetheart had cut off her hair, and that all the girls in the Orlean Institute had performed the same operation. The reason given for the proceeding was that the girls in Virginia so mourned for their sweethearts that their hair fell out to an extent which rendered the tonsorial expedient necessary.
A letter came into the Chicago Post Office for delivery in the city, with the envelope saturated with blood. Upon the back of it was written the following words: "The letter is discovered by having been in the pocket of a brave soldier (Capt. Ferris, 12th Ill.) who was wounded (it is feared mortally) at the battle of Savannah, April 6th, 1862.
A private in one of the New Hampshire regiments, now with the Army of the Potomac, writes home that he now has two pairs of shoes, six pairs stockings, five pairs drawers, four pairs pants, three pairs shirts, five coats, three blankets, etc. and concludes his letter with the very modest request to "send no more at present."
A letter passed through the post office in Cleveland, Ohio, lately
directed as follows:
"Feds and Confeds, let this go free
Down to Nashville, Tennessee;
This three cent stamp will pay the cost,
Until you find Sophia Yost.
Postmaster North, or even South,
May open it and find the truth.
I merely say, my wife's got well,
And got a baby, cross as hell,
well, cross as could be expected, coming into this fighting world, during
war times, in the winter!"
Among the articles sent by the soldiers through the mails, and which broke through their envelopes and were picked up in the Washington Post Office was a live terrapin. The animal was found two or three days since in good health. A soldier had sent it to a friend. Yesterday a still more singular thing came to light in the same office - a human finger. A soldier having lost his finger by amputation, first dried it and then sent it to a friend in England! As he enclosed it in a newspaper, instead of paying letter postage on it, the document was stopped there.
The Pine Plains Herald says a letter was received in that neighborhood,
addressed to a young lady from a volunteer in the army, with the following
inscription:
"Soldier's letter, and nary a red,
Hard tack in place of bread;
Postmaster shove it through,
I've nary a stamp, but seven months due."
The contents of a rebel mailbag, captured at Cumberland Gap, have afforded both amusement and instruction. The letters show a great want of confidence in the rebel cause. One writes to his wife not to sell his two pigs for Confederate money, as it is worthless. Another says: "If this war ain't closed soon, there will be no men left; we can't fight a world of men." Another: "I have never seen men so out of heart. If peace don't come soon we'll all desert."
A moccasin snake, eighteen inches in length, captured in the camp of the Sixtieth Ohio Infantry, near Petersburg, was discovered on Monday among the mail matter at Wheeling, W.V. in transit for the west. His snakeship was safely done up in a glass vial, but it being against the regulations of the department to send glass through the mail, the reptile was detained and confiscated as contraband mail matter. It is lively and enjoys itself as well as can be expected under the circumstances.
During the rapid pursuit of Gen. Early after the victory of Fisher's
Hill the following note from the rebl rear guard was found pinned to a tree:
"Mr. Yank - for God's sake stop and let your horses graze and allow us poor,
starved devils to get away, and we'll treat the next time we meet at
Strasburg."
Letters from two soldier boys were received by their mothers in New Haven on Monday, one from Jimmy Byran said: "I fear Watty Foster is dead. I have not seen him since the fight. Do not tell his mother." The other is from Watty Foster and said: "I fear Jimmy Byran is dead. I can get no tidings of him since the fight. Do not tell his mother!" Didn't these two mothers have a time when the met and compared notes?
A Louisianian writes to his son in the rebel army: “This war was got up drunk, but they will have to settle it sober.”
A gentleman who a few days ago was wandering over the ground
recently occupied by a portion of Gen. Early’s forces engaged in the “Siege of
Washington”, picked up the notebook of a Confederate soldier containing, among
other matters, the following bit of lyrical poetry:
“Quoth Meade to Lee,
Can you tell me,
In the shortest style of writing,
When people will
All get their fill
Of this big job of fighting?”
“Quoth Lee to Meade,
I can, indeed,
I’ll tell you in a minute –
When legislators and speculators –
Are made to enter in it!”