Item No. 5250496

An interesting archive of eight letters written between October 1862 and May 1865 by Private Elisha B. Comstock of the 34th New York “Herkimer” Regiment, and later the 186th New York. The letters were written to Comstock’s friend Frederick Smith, who evidently handled his financial accounts. Comstock writes about numerous camp-related items, long marches, and battles including Hatcher’s Run and the Petersburg “Breakthrough.” He also shares interesting perspectives about and controversy over enlistment expiration dates and, after the war, how men who dodged the draft should be treated.

The first letter was written in October 1862 from Bolivar Heights near Harpers Ferry. Having received four months worth of pay, Comstock sends some home to Smith. “I have enclosed twenty-five and Father has twenty dollars and it goes by express,” he writes. HDS lists a 42-year-old Henry Comstock also of Company C, 34th New York, who is presumably 19-year-old Elisha’s father. “I am a making reckoning of its being a good long time before we get any pay again,” he closes.

The second letter was written about a month later on November 18, 1862, after completing a long march. Comstock writes:

Today we are now near Fredericksburg. We have not moved any today. I don’t think we will. We came here yesterday about three o’clock. We have been on the march for three days. On the way from Warrenton to where we are it is about forty miles. We are very near the rebels now. Yes, today after we got here one of our batteries of artillery went out to the front and had quite a fight, but our fellows took them by surprise and they soon drove them back. We are now where General McDowell was last summer when he and Jackson had daily news from one another. The men seem to think that we are a going to have good luck in this move. I hope so.

The third letter, written in April 1863, we find Comstock and his regiment still in the Fredericksburg area weeks before the commencement of the Chancellorsville Campaign. During the long winter there had been a significant religious revival throughout the army camps. Comstock writes about a new chaplain in the 34th (possibly Chaplain Sylvester F. Schoonmaker):

We have got a chaplain in our Regt now. We had a meeting today in our Co street. Preaching seems rather well to the boys, their not hearing preaching in so long. I believe we have got a fine man for a chaplain. His name I don’t know. He seems to take great interest in the boys. He has prayer meetings at his tent every other night. The bugle has just blowed. For meeting he has his tent full every time.

The men of the 34th New York had enlisted for a two-year term, and as the time grew close there was disagreement between the soldiers and the government over when their service officially began. The soldiers believed their enlistments dated to May 1861 when they had enrolled in their companies. The government, however, enforced the later date on which they had been mustered into federal service—June 15, 1861. Comstock writes:

I am in hopes that some of us will be up that way by the middle of June next, but the boys say they are a going to quit then, for they say their time is out then. I am afraid they will raise a mus and disgrace their Regt, but I believe their time is out in May, for every pay and muster roll is dated from May first, but I have nothing to say about when their time is out, for I am for the term of the Regt, but I would like well enough to know when our time is out.

At the conclusion of the third letter he remarks that the 34th “has to furnish 56 men every day for picket and twenty for camp guard, and from ten to fifteen for extra duty. And we have one hundred and eighty men for duty.”

In the brief fourth letter, written in late June 1863, Comstock writes to Smith to request $10. He notes that “we are not a going to be mustered out till sometime next week,” adding that “most of the boys are a boarding at hotels in the city. They are as nasty as hogs in the Bureaux.”

Comstock mustered out with the rest of the 34th New York June 30, 1863. The following summer, however, he enlisted as a private in the newly formed 186th New York Infantry. The fifth letter in the archive was written from the 186th’s camp in November 1864. In it Comstock asks Smith to put his money “into town bonds for two years,” adding that “I think of laying my money out in a piece of land somewhere,” but concludes that he will “take the bond if there is enough worthwhile.” He continues that the regiment is “preparing for winter quarters” and that “Judson P. Legg is now assigned to Co A and has command of the company. Capt Wallace has got better and is in charge of the company now.”

Upon arriving at the front near Petersburg, the 186th was assigned to the Union Army’s 9th Corps. In the sixth letter, dated February 5, 1865, Comstock describes hearing heavy fighting on the Union’s left flank. This was the beginning of the Battle of Hatcher’s Run in which two other Union corps attempted to further stretch and pierce the Confederate defenses of Petersburg. He writes:

At present we are under marching orders. Received orders yesterday about three o’clock to pack up & be ready to march at a moment’s notice. We were to have four days rations. At the same time there was fighting going on on the left of us so far that we could not tell the difference from the volleys and the artillery. We don’t know the result yet. I don’t think we will go now, but the order to unpack knapsacks has not been given out. I thought last night we would move anyway, for there was no pickets detailed from our Regt. I think we are held in reserve for any emergency.

At the conclusion of the letter Comstock remarks that the previous night “was a very cold night for a wounded man to be out. They could not help but freeze to death.” In a postscript dated February 8 he adds:

The battle has subsided some and there is nothing to be heard of, nor from it, to rely on. Yesterday we heard that General Warren was killed & today we heard it was not so.

The 186th New York’s only major combat action took place during the “breakthrough” at Petersburg on April 2, 1865. It’s unclear if Comstock was wounded in this action, but the seventh letter in the group was written April 22, 1865—shortly after Lee’s surrender—from the 9th Corps Hospital at City Point, the Union Army’s main logistical hub supporting the operations against Richmond and Petersburg. In this letter Comstock requests cash from Smith due to being “unlucky enough to lose my pocket book with about fifteen dollars in it.” He remarks further that “our Division has not made their appearance yet,” but that “the First [Division] has gone aboard of transports today.” He concludes that “some of the boys has got it in their heads that they are a going right home,” adding skeptically that “I am afraid they will get fooled.”

And fooled they were, for the regiment remained on duty for several more weeks. The eighth and final letter in the archive was written May 2, 1865, from Alexandria. In it Comstock expresses his thanks for cash received, remarking that “we can buy anything we wish at a little more reasonable price than we could in front of Petersburg.” Of recent events he writes:

The Hospital was broken up on the 25th of April & all that was able to march was sent to their Regts, & the remainder was sent to the General Hospital. My Regt came to City Point the same day that the Hospital was broken up, and myself and three more of my company in short order reported to our company for duty, but as yet we have not done any for the want of muskets. There is nearly a hundred & fifty men without muskets in the Regt. But there is not much use of muskets.

Expressing his distaste for men who escaped the draft he writes:

The war is so near its final end that a musket don’t come in play so well as a rope does. I agree with you in regards to the hanging part. And they had ought to pass a law in regards to men that had gone to Canada to get rid of the draft, and deserted from the armies. They never had ought to be permitted to come under the flag they deserted.

The final passages of the letter read:

The boys are all well and expect soon to come home. We are now encamped about a mile out of the city of Alexandria, Virginia. They are bound to keep the boys a drilling until we are discharged, for we have to drill four hours a day, and at night we have dress parade. But we are independent of doing picket duty, for we are in a civil country.

Two of our boys died in the Hospital with their wounds since the battle. Their names was Wm. Brown & Charles Plat. They were two good soldiers. I suppose you are about beginning to plow and get your crops in the ground. I wish I was up home a helping some of the farmers. Do their springs work? I think I will be up and help do the haying. I don’t see the use of keeping us down here a doing nothing, unless they have got a lot of soft bread on hand that they want to get rid of.

Comstock would be promoted to sergeant over the course of his duty with the 186th New York, and would muster out with the regiment at Alexandria on June 2, 1865.

The eight letters are in various condition but mostly very good to fine with light toning and foxing. Most measure about 5” x 8”.