I received your letter last evening just as we were getting ready to lay down for the night and very glad I was to hear from you. I am enjoying considerable good health but I don’t rest well nights. I sleep very well until 1o’clock and then I wake up with some cramp in my back that it is impossible for me to sleep any more the rest of the night. We don’t know how long we are to stay here but when we move we shall probably move on towards Richmond as heavy siege guns and mortars are coming here and as near as I can learn the plan is to siege the rebels out of their fortifications if possible and then move on toward Richmond. We are doing picket duty today within a short distance of Fredericksburg. Only the Rappahannock¹ lies between us and the rebels. We can see the rebel fortifications and rifle pits². They have been busy at work since we crossed the river digging rifle pits and throning up entrenchments and it looks like a hard task to drive then out of their position. We expect to see every battle that is to be fought between here and Richmond as we are in the Grand Army of the Potomac³. We are in Sumners Corps.⁴ And Sturges Division⁵. I don’t expect we shall go into winter quarters at all as we are in the advance and when the rest of the army move, we shall move. I expect the Eleventh⁶ will stay where they are as we can’t hear that they have moved only by rumors and camp rumors and what everyone says is not to depend on. The weather is very fine here. We have had hardly rain enough to lay the dust since we have been here, but we expect bad weather and enough of it when it does come and God pity the men of our army when it does come. It tries a man’s patriotism out here. I will drop the subject as it is not pleasant to contemplate, hoping for the best. I don’t know of any news to write. We are in a country where it is impossible to get news only by observation. We don’t know nothing only what we hear and then we can place no credit on it. I dream of you often and of home and I hope some time to be there with you and to mingle again with those that I love, but it seems a long time even if I am to be permitted to return but my trust is in Him who is able to protect me. I wish that I could feel well but I try to take good care of myself for I don’t want to be sick out here as it is no place for a person to be sick. I want a box of something good to eat the worst of anything and I expect you have sent me one before now. If the Express Company⁷ will not be responsible for the delivery of it. Send it on your own responsibility. They will send it to Washington and I can get it from there as John Short will get it to me as he is a sutler⁸ for the 16 Connecticut Regiment and they are encamped near by us and he will get it through for I want one very much. Our sutler is with us but he hasn’t got anything to eat and army rations I have got sick of. I want something from home. We have enough to eat but it is just what I don’t like. I will tell you what we have mornings, we have some pork and hard bread and coffee. For dinner we have beans and sometime soup and sometimes rice for supper but not very often and generally coffee and hard bread. So you see what our living is but I manage to get along with it. If I could eat pork I could get along nicely but I can’t eat it very well so it comes rather tuff on me but I cannot write you a very long letter this time as I don’t much like it. Take good care of yourself and write me often. I expect to hear that you have returned home in few days as it is a long time since you have been away and Father and Mother will be glad to see you. I am glad to hear that Jane is going with you as she will be company for you, but I don’t think of any thing else to write now. Give my love to Father and Mother, sister Mary, Grandmother and Grandfather and everyone else and tell them I am enjoying life in the hardest way possible. Tell Waldo that I have not been able to procure any rebel things to send him but instead of that the rebels got a great many things from us. But I must close for this time so Goodbye Eliza for the present from your affectionate husband,
Ezra B. Rounds
P.S. I understand that a vessel is about to leave Providence for Acquia Creek⁹ with boxes for soldiers but I fear that I shall not have one as it will leave before you can get one ready. A great many of the men have written for boxes which will come on board of this vessel. If you can send on this way I wish you would.
Footnotes
- Rappahannock River, Virginia
- Rifle pits – https://sites.google.com/site/confedengineerlh/event-vision/civil-war-field-fortifications-website—basic-information-on-rifle-pits
- Grand Army of the Potomac – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Potomac
- Sumners Corp. images of Sumner’sCorp https://www.google.com/search?q=Virginia+1863,+military,+Sumner%27s+Corp.&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtit7ll_fdAhVO_oMKHZkpBFIQsAR6BAgCEAE&biw=1606&bih=985
- Sturgis Division -Samuel Davis Sturgis (June 11, 1822 –September 28, 1889) was an American military officer … Sturgis then commanded the 2nd Division in the IX Corps at thebattles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He went west with IXCorps in 1863.
- Eleventh – The XI Corps (Eleventh Army Corps) was a corps of the Union Army during the American Civil War, best remembered for its involvement in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg in 1863
- Express Company – there were four companies that delivered mail and packages to troop on both sides of the Civil war. In 1863 the Adams Express Company operated in the north
- Sutler – independent business people that sold supplies to the individual soldiers at greatly increased prices. Many sutler’s became notorious for running blockades in order to get supplies to the soldiers. This was a period before “dog tags” and soldiers identified themselves and their possessions by engraving their names on their possessions. The sutler’s stand was where the soldiers would go to have their thing engraved. The sutlers were located around the military encampments.
- Acquia Creek – small inlet on the Potomac River, in Virginia, north of Fredericksburg.
