UNION SOLDIER LETTER WITH COVER - PRIVATE ASA JENNINGS, 17TH MAINE

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Addressed to “My Dear Son.” [also named Asa, 1851-1922]. Dated “Camp Bullock Near Brandy / Station, Jan. 31, 1864.” 4 pp. in pencil on lined paper, 5” x 7. Exhibits fold-marks, else VG.

Jennings was born in 1819 in New Sharon, Franklin County, ME. As resident of Farmington, ME, 42 year-old Asa Jennings enlisted as a private, mustering into Co. “G”, 17th ME Infantry, 8/18/1862. At Gettysburg, where the 17th Maine suffered 19 killed and 100 wounded in the Wheatfield, Private Jennings was detached as a hospital nurse. Mustered out on 6/4/65 at Washington, DC.  Jennings died in Sept. 1892 in Farmington and is buried there in Riverside Cemetery.

Initially attached to the 3rd Corps, this unit was later transferred to the 2nd Corps. With both it participated in all the major engagements of the Army of the Potomac from the Battle of Fredericksburg, Dec. 1862, through Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, taking sever casualties in the Gettysburg Wheatfield and the Wilderness. During service it lost 207 and mortally wounded and 163 by disease for a total of 370.

Text:

Asa Jennings writes from Camp in Virginia, having just returned from leave in Maine.

“…I have at least found time to commence a letter for you. I arrived in camp three weeks ago today, being from Thursday morning till Sunday afternoon, and so cold as to be uncomfortable in the cars. I was in hopes of have arrived here on Saturday but the trains were a little behind time so I had to stay in Boston the first night instead of going on to New York, which made it wrong all of the way. I was in time however. Joseph Blithen who went before I did has not come back and is reported a deserter. He lived at the lakes.

I found that my regt. had moved the day before I came back, but the hospital had not been moved. I found snow all of the way from Maine to Virginia. There being from one to two inches of snow here at that time. Since I have returned the frost has all come out of the ground and it was warm enough and dry enough to sow grain.

I have had a harder time since I came back than before. I have just got into my new tent which is the best one I have ever had. It is made of Oak Plank split out of large trees. I dug ditch in the ground about six or eight inches deep. I set the splits up on end, and is high enough to stand up in my tent. My tent is ten feet long, by seven and a half wide and is floored over except under the Bed. We have a bed for two, but three of us have a share, one of which in on the night watch and one on the day watch.

I am doing commissary work. We have a stone chimney attachment at the top making it look quite respectable. We have a hedge around the hospital grounds make by driving stakes into the ground taller than my head and woven full of evergreens. We have named the hospital, the Caney hospital. We have lost five men since I came back, but we have no DR here. But the second assistant who was our former steward, our first and second surgeon who were sent to Washington sick.

I have not heard from home since I left. I sent a letter to your mother immediately after I came back with ten dollars in it and I am afraid its lost I got a letter from father last night, but he had not heard from you mother since the day after I left. I am very anxious indeed to hear from them for I left your grandfather & grandma & Aunt Randalah sick. I have written with a pencil because I have no ink and you may not be able to find it all out.

Write soon / your father / Asa Jennings

Solid letter home from a soldier of the 17th Maine, one of Gettysburg’s “Wheatfield” regiments. In protective sleeve.   [jp/ld][ph:L]

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