My Dear Wife,
I received a letter from you last Friday and you can imagine how glad I was to hear from you after waiting so long. I am well as usual. The health for the regiment is very good, no one being in the hospital here to my knowledge. I have written three letters to you since I have been I Kentucky but have received but one in reply, but it is not your fault, as we do not get our mail, seldom, but once a week. We should get one oftener if it came direct from Lexington, but it has to go to division postmaster at Winchester and there is no mail that runs from that place to this. There is no news of importance to write. Everything is quiet along our lines and as far as I am able to learn, there is no large force of rebels in the state. I don’t know where we shall go from here. We may go further to the front, but the probability is when we move again, we shall move towards home as we have only about eight weeks to stay, but there is all kinds of rumors always in camp, but I am quite certain that our stay in Kentucky is but about eight weeks. Some of our boys serenaded the Col. the other night. They sang “Home Again”¹. After they got through, he told them they would have an opportunity of singing it again in two months and a half on Camp Stevens and in order for us to be in Providence by the 18th of July and be mustered out we shall have to start for home by the 1st of July if not before. I understand the 11th have gone to Suffolk and if that is so they may have a chance to see something of war yet, but they never will see the hardship the 12th has seen. They will probably see the difference between camp duty and active service in the field. They think they have had as hard times as we have but they may learn their mistake. Not that I wish them the hardships we have seen. We thought we had hard times when we were in Camp Casey and had to go out four or five miles on picket. We even found fault when we had sibley tents² and stoves in them, but little did we think what we had got to come to. They have had their tents boarded up about 5 feet with bunks and stoves in them while we have had to lie on the ground all winter with our blankets wet a good part of the time, but we are quite comfortable now. As far as the weather is concerned, we have as pleasant weather as we can ask for but our living is rather tuff, but we manage to get along with it. Our Lieutenant has been promoted to Captain and a better man can’t be found in the Reg. Lieutenant Bacon has been transferred tour company again, so we have got two good officers as there is in the Reg. We are going to have white gloves to wear on dress parade. I don’t know whether we shall have to pay for them or not, but we have to buy blacking³. And I suppose we shall have to buy gloves if they say so. We have just received orders to march and where we shall go it is impossible for me to tell you in this letter, but the rumor is that we are going back to Lexington to take the place of the Forty Eighth Pennsylvania which is doing Provost duty there. I hope this may be so, but I don’t know certain, so I can give you nothing definite as to where our destination is but as no other regiment is under marching orders it looks quite possible that we are going on detached duty somewhere, but where we don’t know. I have dated this letter from camp, but I am on picket duty about one and a half miles from camp. We are stationed at a house, so we are having an easy time. We have had a hard shower it has just got through raining and the sun has come out bright again. A detachment of the 10th Kentucky Cavalry have just passed by bringing in one rebel prisoner which they have taken. Apple trees are in full blossom here, potatoes are coming up. I guess you will laugh at the way I have spelled potatoes and I don’t know but I shall forget how to spell entirely for it bothers me the worst kind. I suppose the people about there are just thinking about planting. It don’t take long to plant here. One man furrow the ground, another drops the seed and one follows afoot with a kind of plow which covers it up and that is all they do to it. No manure is used and as the land is smooth it takes but a small amount of labor to raise a good crop. The land being good, but there is no spot so pleasant to me as New England, rough as it is. I have seen many cities since I have been in the army but I have not seen one yet that will compare with the capital of my own lovely state, but I can’t think of much more to write. Try and take good care of yourself darling until my return which will be in a short tie if nothing happens to me. Two months will pass away soon and then what a wonderful meeting it will be after so long an absence. I have no doubt you have suffered more as far as mind is concerned than I have for the soldier has something to keep his mind busy all the time. A soldier’s life is full of excitement. Were it not for that I should have given up long ago. I wish I could hear from you often and if we go back to Lexington, we can hear from each other once a week certain. Give my love to Father, Mother, sister and all the rest. I’ll send you my picture if I can get it taken. Perhaps I can in Lexington if we go there. I send you as many kisses as I dreamed of receiving from you the other night which ought to be enough to satisfy any person, so good night Darling until you hear from me again.
From your loving husband, Ezra B. Rounds
Footnotes
1- www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000024. When Johnny Come Marching Home Again. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore led a number of bands in the Boston area, including Patrick Gilmore’s Band. At the beginning of the Civil War, in September 1861, the band enlisted as a group in the Union Army and was attached to the 24th Massachusetts Infantry. Gilmore’s band served both as musicians and stretcher-bearers at such horrific battles as Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Richmond. Gilmore was posted to occupied New Orleans, Louisiana in 1863 and, as Grand Master of the Union Army, ordered to reorganize the state military bands. It was at this time that he claimed to have composed the words and music to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
2- Sibley Tent
3- Blacking – The soldiers polished their boots with stove polish.