Friday, October 2, 2015

Captain Charles Fessenden Morse, November 14, 1862

Camp Near Sharpsburgh, November 14, 1862.

I wonder if you are having as charming a day at home as we are having here. It is genuine Indian summer, with that soft, hazy atmosphere so peculiar to the season. The sun is almost hot, and only the chill in the air occasionally tells one how near winter it is. The leaves have nearly all fallen from the trees around us, and the river is almost in view from my tent door. Our camp must now be in plain sight from the other side, but I trust the rebs won't be so ill-mannered as to throw any shells into it.

Everything about our camp has the appearance of winter quarters; the men have, most of them, built themselves very comfortable houses of logs, boards, etc., with fire-places of various kinds in them, all far more comfortable than anything we had last winter. We officers are all fixed up in some shape or other, very pleasantly. I am living alone now and have my tent nicely floored; at the end of it, I have had the seam ripped up and have had built a good, open brick fire-place, so that now these cold evenings, and, in fact, nearly all the time, I have a fine blazing wood fire. You have no idea how cheerful this is; it seems almost like sitting down at home.

We heard, yesterday, the joyful news that Harry Russell had been exchanged. He won't allow much time to elapse before he joins the regiment. I know we shall all be glad enough to see him. He is one of our very best officers and a first-rate fellow; I hope he will never have to go through another such experience as he has had this summer.

You don't know what an interesting thing it is to ride over the hard fought ground of Antietam. Yesterday, Bob Shaw and I visited all the places where we were engaged, saw where our men were killed, etc.

We could follow our first line along by the graves; next to ours came the Third Wisconsin's, which lost terribly in this place; next to that was a battery which was splendidly fought. Where it stood, in one place there are the remains of fifteen dead horses lying so close that they touch each other. Farther on, towards our left, we found numerous graves of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania men; they were in a wood. Every tree in the vicinity is scarred by bullets, and the branches torn by shell and shot. No language could describe more forcibly the severity of the fight. It is hard to realize, in riding through these now peaceful and beautiful woods, that they could have been filled so lately with all the sights and sounds of a great battle.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 105-6

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