Item No. 6521825

An archive of twelve war-date letters written by First Sergeant Samuel C. Fell of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, who served in the 8th Pennsylvania (3 months), 23rd Pennsylvania, and 61st Pennsylvania Regiments. The letters cover the period from May 1861 through February 1863. The first three letters were written from Camp Slifer, near Chambersburg, as Fell and his comrades in the 8th Pennsylvania received equipment, drilled, and waited for their chance at the rebels. "The boys are all feeling better now than they have since they left home," Fell wrote confidently on May 19. "Only we are getting tired of laying here. We want to [have] something to wake us up, say a little brush with some of the traitors I think. We could settle this thing in about a week if they would only let us, but I guess they think that it will all blow over." Fell then described how several rebel deserters who, having come over from Harpers Ferry, "wanted to fight under the Stars and Stripes." They were "suspicious lookin fellers," however, and the deserters received "quarters in the jail."

In a May 25 letter, Fell wrote "the Government would like to have us enlist for three years, but guess they can't fool us much on that," adding that he would consider a second three-month term once his initial enlistment was up. He then notes the action at Alexandria the previous day, in which Union troops "tore down the palmetto flag and put up the stars and stripes in its place." (This was the infamous event in which Colonel Elmer Ellsworth was killed, though he is not named in the letter.) Fell then discussed an incident he witnessed in town in which a comrade from Wilkes Barre went to the hotel bar and drank "three tumblers brim full of liquor and then sneak out without paying for it," an act that Fell called "the meanest trick a man could do."

On May 30 Fell and his regiment were still at Camp Slifer. "There was about 28 hundred troops came in this morning," he wrote. "We expect to have 15,000 troops before we leave here." He then described the knapsacks they received ("hard looking things they are"). An eating contest was then described in which Fell bested Ted Tucker (WIA Spotsylvania Court House), "and felt first rate over it too." He continued to believe that the war would end quickly, writing that he didn't believe he would reenlist "because the traitors are backing away from Harpers Ferry as fast as they can now."

The 8th Pennsylvania mustered out in July, and with the war continuing Fell reenlisted, this time in the 23rd Pennsylvania ("Birney's Zouaves"), which was posted at Washington. Two of the archive's letters were written during Fell's time with the Zouaves. In the first of these, written October 15, Fell described how he went on the sick list "not because I was sick but because I did not feel like drilling." He then described the religious tracts received by the 23rd's chaplain, James G. Shinn, before discussing his visit to the camp of the 36th Pennsylvania, in which he visited with that regiment's Colonel Elisha B. Harvey and Chaplain Thomas P. Hunt, who both wished Fell "was in their regiment" as "one of the best boys that Wilkes Barre ever had, only when I got one of them wild streaks on." In the second of these letters, written November 16, Fell sends some greenbacks home to his mother. "It is United States money and maybe some of the storekeepers won't want to take it, but take it to any broker or to the bank and they will give you gold for it."

The next letter was written February 26, 1862, right after Fell's company was transferred to the 61st Pennsylvania (the 23rd had too many companies and four of these were transferred to the 61st). Writing to his mother from Camp Birney, Fell explained why "some boys sent so much money home and I did not," citing that he bought his own tobacco "and don't beg it," purchased new boots and a gum coat, in addition to the ink, paper, and stamps he required. Later he asked mother to excuse her "spendthrift of a son."

Two days later Fell wrote home again, announcing that "our marching was a failure." A long-awaited movement had again been cancelled at the last minute. "If you wanted to hear a lot of fellers growl and grumble," he wrote, "you ought to [have] been here when they heard it." He and a friend teased the new men that"they would not get off as long as we was in the regiment, for it is just our luck to get in a cursed regiment that never goes anywhere nor sees anything." His friend noted that "we are such hard boys that a bullet or bayonet can't faze us" once the men were unleashed on the enemy. The movement had been anticipated to take them to Manassas, "but sine we heard that we was a going to reinforce General Banks's division who had attached Winchester and been repulsed." Fell itched at the chance to get to Winchester, but added "if they will only let us help take Richmond I will be satisfied." In a separate letter written later that day, Fell made a light-hearted attempt at poetry, but scratched a bit of news on the other side of the sheet that Winchester had already fallen with 1,500 prisoners.

Writing again on March 17, Fell related that he and the regiment had had a "purty hard time of it over in Virginia." Fell and his friend Tucker "enjoyed ourselves a laughing at the poor fellers that never was out of sight of home. I tell you it was amusing to see the poor devils a trying to start a fire. They would start a smoke and try to blow it in a blaze, but it was a no go. They would get their eyes full of smoke." Upon returning to camp the men were full of talk about "what they would have done if they had got a hold fo the Rebels" and anticipated trying again via another route in hopes they would "get a chance to show our spunk." The regiment received orders to board steamboats. Fell believed the purpose was "reinforcing Burnside" in North Carolina, but they were instead destined for the Peninsula, where they would join the 4th Corps. In a second letter written March 17, Fell offered additional details about the 61st's march into Virginia. Only part way through the day's march "there was not more than half of the regiment together. They was laying all along the road, tired out."

The next letter was written from near Fair Oaks, Virginia, on June 25, right at the beginning of the Seven Days. In reply to a question about Private James Dilley, Fell wrote that he was not near Dilley when he was shot (at Fair Oaks on May 31), "but saw him in a few minutes after they brought him back to where I was with [Private Alfred] Groff, and laid him down. He was dead then. He did not live a minute after he was shot." Addressing is worried mother, Fell wrote that "she must quit that worrying herself when she hears bad news about me. It is time enough when she gets it from good authority, not from the letters that is written by a set of mischief makers like Mr. Wilson Connor. He, the big coward, was not close enough to where the battle was to know who was kilt and who was not."

The final letter in the group was written nearly a year later, in February 1863, while the regiment was in camp near Bell Plain. The 61st had been transferred to the 6th Corps, where they joined other regiments to form the Light Brigade, a unit that was intended to "make raids and chase guerrillas." The brigade would march light, carrying only "our gun, cartridge boxes, and haversack." The uniform, Fell understood, was to be "buckskin pants, tight round about, and slouch hat, and long leg boots if you buy them out of your own pocket." These items would "wear a great deal longer than the regular ones used by the army." He anxiously awaited the time when the brigade would make its first raid, but at that moment, in the middle of winter, Fell was pleased with the comfort of his quarters. "We all have got a fireplace in our tents built of logs and plastered with mud," he wrote. Firewood was plenty, and Fell was "about as comfortable as you find people now days. I tent alone by myself. While I am a writing this my fire is just a hopping and it is as warm in here as you please."

On the reverse of the final letter, Fell made a better attempt at poetry than the other example from earlier in the archive. The last verse reads:

Talk not of rank or of honor or station,
His be the fame who has risen in his might,
Struck for starry hued flag of the nation,
Battled for God and for freedom and right.

The letters are in good to excellent condition. All have light toning and foxing. A couple are quite faint, but still legible. Several of the letters were written on patriotically decorated stationery, the most interesting featuring the bust of General David B. Birney and reading "Col. D. B. Birney's Zouaves, Head-quarters Twenty-Third Regiment P.V." The full electronic transcripts of the letters are available at no cost with your purchase.

Samuel Fell survived the war, was promoted to second lieutenant in June 1865, and mustered out with the regiment three weeks later.