Lieutenant William James Fisher, Civil War Soldier

Dear Father:

I received yours of 14th yesterday; the first I’ve received since leaving Washington. I believe one letter was brought into Camp but I never received it. You wrote of the death of Uncle Joe; the only true Uncle that I ever had.

I am very glad to hear that Aunt Eliza is getting well enough to be out again. I hope the next time I go home I’ll find her perfectly well.

I left my trunk and all my other things, except one valise and my bed, in Washington, at Mr. Queens on Massachusetts Avenue, between 6th and 7th Street. I believe you were there while in Washington, so, if I should be so unfortunate as to be killed, you will know where to find them.

Very nearly all the male inhabitants of this section of the country have gone to the war. The females generally are secessionist but you can get anything they have for coin. A piece of gold will open their hearts at once. All that I have seen, so far, say their husbands were drafted into the Rebble service. They have plenty of shinplaster of from two to ten cents,

But will sell a handful for a quarter.

I saw an hundred dollar CSA currency note, made payable with eight percent interest, six months after peace is declared between the Northern states and the Southern Confederacy.

I suppose there is no mistake about the death of A. S. Johnston. Jeff Davis announced it in his message about Beauregard losing his arm. I believe it hasn’t been contradicted.

General McClellan is encamped within about one hundred yards of my tent. I see him nearly every day while going out or coming into camp.

There is firing going on almost continually. There was skirmishing a few nights ago, about half mile from our camp, in which several men were killed.

If you could have been at our dinner today you would have seen the use of tin plates. We had oysters, ham, warm bread, onions, and several other little things. We get milk in a condensed form, in a small can, for which we pay about $.75. It’s a very good substitute for pure milk.

My health is, and has been since leaving Washington, tolerably good with the exceptions of a few days. It has been raining pretty steadily for the last four days but cleared pretty well up this morning.

Since I last wrote, we have moved up about three or four miles, so we now are within two & half miles of Yorktown.

There is mail, which runs pretty regularly from Washington to Headquarters, through which we get our letters.

Please write soon and write very long letters and, if you see Uncle John’s boys, tell them, if they want to hear from Yorktown, to write. I would be glad to have letters from anybody.

It’s so very lonely out here. Nothing to see here or read.

Your affectionate son, W. J. Fisher.

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My dear Father:

I wrote home several days ago but as yet I have received no answer. I received a letter on the 28th that was dated March 24th, the same letter, I am almost sure, that came into camp about three weeks ago, but I was not here at the time and it was thrown back and taken to Washington again.

Last night, about half past eight o’clock, our commanding officers came to the tent and told us to have our companies ready to fall in under arms at 4 o’clock this morning.

General McClellan sent a dispatch that the enemy would, in all probability, make an advance during the night.

This morning we were up in time but everything was as quiet as usual. After standing about two hours we were dismissed.

There is one battery, within half a mile of our camp that has five one hundred pounders and one two hundred pounder, the purpose of which is to shell Gloucester Point.

The capture of New Orleans is a grand thing, if true.

It’s rumored around in camp that there is going to be a cessation of hostilities for a short time, but I can’t tell whether there is any truth in it.

We have plenty of sutlers out here, at least the 10th US Infantry have one, and I know of several of the regiments which have three. They make a great deal of money. In the first place, they sell these things for about three or four times as much as they cost. Eggs, for instance, they sell for 40 cents per dozen; bread, for about twenty cents per pound; and then other things; in proportion. Our sutler told me, Sunday morning about nine o’clock, that he had taken in two hundred & sixteen dollars in cash besides about three hundred dollars in orders. I suppose he makes from two to three hundred dollars clear. Every day he has sold his first cargo and is, tomorrow, going to send after a second load.

I’ve sent for a felt hat, but it’s a little too warm, here, for cap.

As to the news, if there is any, you get it about two days sooner than we do. I believe we have received newspapers two days old, but very often we get them about the 4th day after they are published.

I’ve a notion to write to Mr. Queen and have him send my trunk home by express. I could send the key in a letter and you could have my clothes and other things taken out and aired well so no moths get into clothes that way or do you think that it’s air tight. If Ma thinks there is any danger, I believe, I’ll have it sent home for I have some very valuable clothes in it that I don’t want spoiled.

I have only received two letters from home, since going into the field nearly two months ago. Please write once every week, anyhow, and tell all to write as often as they can and, above all other things, I should like to receive a letter from Ma.

Give my love to all the family. Your affectionate son,

W. J. Fisher

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My Dear Father:

I received a letter from Ma and a part of a letter from you this evening. From what Ma wrote, Sis has written a letter to me, but I never received it.

I would like you to send me some Delaware newspapers. As for others, I suppose, I get them sooner than if you were to send them.

Sis writes that Capt Layton has been married. Who did he marry? Did he marry Miss Bush: or some other lady?

I suppose before you receive this you will know all the news. The Rebbles have evacuated Yorktown and are now going toward Richmond. I suppose, the Tribune will censure hard McClellan for not fighting, but I think if we can whip them without fighting, that will be to the best way.

There has been a great many prisoners captured and brought into camp today.

They say Jeff Davis, Magruder, and the other Generals in command, held a council of war and decided to evacuate. All, at least but Magruder, and that he appealed to the soldiers to stand by him and defend Yorktown. But they would not back him up and were about unanimous in their vote to evacuate. If that is so, then we have no reason to disbelieve it.

I think they are past fighting. I believe these retreats will have the effect of making the soldiers lose all confidence in themselves as well as their commanders.

All of our cavalry and light artillery are in pursuit of the enemy as are also our gunboats. There was very heavy firing this evening up the river. I suppose they had caught them.

Our bands came out today playing for the first time since we have been in this camp and you may be sure that it has a very cheering effect on us all.

I see by the papers that G. P. Fisher has come out and opposes Emancipation.

I am glad you are going to have a good crop of fruit. I should like to be home about next September to get some peaches but things may turn out so that I can be home for a few days then.

I think that as soon as this war is ended, and I believe it will be ended with in a few months, that I shall be sent on recruiting service. If I’m sent to any of the middle states, I will have a chance to get home for a few days.

Please write soon and send me some Delaware newspapers; Advertisers and Messengers.

Give my love to all the family. Your affectionate son. Will

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My Dear Father:

I received your letter of May 19th a few moments ago, being the first I’ve received since leaving Yorktown.

We left, I think, on the 10th and marched through the Rebel fortifications which were the best I’ve ever seen. They had been thrown up more than a year ago. Their heavy guns commanded everything for miles around. They had planted torpedoes all over the fields in front of their works but when we passed, they were nearly all of them marked by a small stick with a slip of white rag tied to it.

We marched on towards Williamsburg we passed through the field where the battle of the 5th was fought. Under a large tree, in the center, I saw two Rows of graves of Jersey Vols. I saw the grave of one 2ndLieutenant. After he was killed, the Rebels stripped him of his clothes and left him on the field. I also saw them burying one man that was wounded. He had started home but died before getting to the landing and was brought back and buried with his comrades. I forgot to mention a grave yard I saw near Yorktown of the 5th Miss. Battalion.

We marched through Williamsburg about half past two o’clock. I saw a great many of the inhabitants peering through the windows. I saw William and Mary College and also the court house where Patrick Henry made that celebrated speech. It must have been a beautiful place in time of peace but it’s more full of soldiers.

We encamped about four miles from Williamsburg after marching 21 miles. We had nothing to eat and lay on the ground without anything to cover us with all night. Next morning we started again on an empty stomach. We marched 13 miles and halted, our wagons came up about dark when we got some coffee.

We have been making short marches since then, almost every day, of from five to ten miles per day.

We were encamped two days ago near the White House on Gen. R. E. Lee’s place where Washington was married. It is a beautiful place.

The nearer we got to the Capitol the better the country looks and the better we live. For the last two days we have had sweet potatoes and chickens. An old Negro brought them into camp. I gave him .75 cents for a peck of potatoes and .50 cents for other Chickens. I also bought some butter for .75 cents per lbs. Things such as flour, hams, and fresh beef, we get from the commissary.

I understand that when we get to Richmond our share of the campaign will be over. If it is, I shall hate to lie in camp for three or four months.

It’s raining very hard and looks as though it will continue to do so for the next twenty four hours.

Please write soon and tell me what Wm. Meredith is doing and where he is and also where David is.

Give my love to all the family. Your affectionate son, WJ Fisher

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My Dear Father:

We are about 8 miles in a direct route from Richmond.

On May 28th we were turned out at 3 A.M., expecting to march across the Chickahominy River and bring on an engagement. We marched within half a mile of the river and halted. Laid 5 hours, went back and took another road to go up and support General Fitz-John Porter who was about twenty miles in a direct line towards Washington. Well, we marched fifteen miles and laid in the bushes all night.

We met about five hundred Rebel Prisoners coming in, of all grades, from a colonel to private. They were all dressed in dirty gray home spun. The only general way you could tell an officer from a private was their dirty black shoulder straps. The papers report that we took five hundred prisoners but I think we brought in more wounded Rebs than that. The next day we marched back to camp. I wish you would subscribe for either the Peninsula News or the Messenger for me immediately if you will. I’ll send you a dollar Milford bank note if it good. I had rather have the Messenger, I believe, but be sure and send me one or the other. What does the Delaware State Journal cost per year?

It is so very hot that I can’t write so I’ll close.

We are fighting all the time now from morning until night or rather, I can hear both cannon and musketry, but so far we have kept out of harm’s way.

Please write soon. Your son, Will

PS: I’ll send a treasury note, please subscribe for one Del. paper, so that I can get them regularly.

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My Dear Father:

I wrote home on the first or second, I think, but have received no answer to that or the letter before.

We are about 7 ½ miles from Richmond and about two miles from the enemies picketts. We are about ½ mile from the Chickahominy River in a north easterly direction from Richmond.

We are having skirmishing continually along our advance lines. Yesterday two of our men were wounded; one of them belonged to a working party that was engaged in corduroying a road on the other side of the River. He was wounded in the hand and thigh, the other was a Pickett who was wounded in the back and shoulder. Our advance picketts are within fifty yards of the Rebels advance. They fire continually at our men but, strange to say, there has been but very few hits. Our troops are not allowed to return their fire.

Deserters and prisoners say that General Johnston was wounded in the groin with a minie ball in the fight on Sunday last. They all report that he hasn’t commanded the army at Richmond but that Gen. Gustavas Smith has commanded.

I don’t know what else to write except that I bought a revolver of the largest size the other day. It carries a ball weighing half an ounce, the same size that your old rifle carries. I think it can kill a man at fifty yards if I hit him in the proper place but I hope I shan’t have the opportunity. I don’t care to have even Rebel blood on my hands.

I just heard that one of our gun boats (the monitor) is within two miles of Richmond and that the Galena has been sunk; but I hardly believe it.

For the third time I will tell you that the next letter I write will be dated Richmond.

Please write soon, very soon. Give my love to all the family

Your affectionate son, W. J. Fisher

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My Dear Father:

I received yours of the 7th but on the 12th answered your inquiries as to which division Sykes’ Brigade is in. About two or three weeks ago he was just in command of a division consisting of the Regular Brigade: The 5th and 10th New York Vols. with the 1st Connecticut. We are at present attached to General Fitz-John Porter’s Corps, but only temporarily. Ours is in reality an independent Brigade.

Day before yesterday a Rebel cavalry officer by the name of Randall, formally of the 1st Dragoons, did one of the sharpest things I think that I ever heard of. He took a detachment of cavalry and rode around the right of our lines. Came up in our rear, burnt Tunstall’s station, and got drunk on government whiskey. Stole 800 head of cattle and got back without being caught, although we put eight thousand cavalry after him, but none caught up with the exception of two Cos. of 5th US Cavalry. Then the Rebbles were in such force that we were [illegible] had the first Lieutenant killed in the first charge. Two Rebbles, one an officer, set on the captain. He, at the first cut killed the [illegible] officer, and then struck at his head. But he being an old officer and knowing perfectly the use of the saber warded the blow off. Then gave the Rebble a back cut with his saber which cut his (the Rebble’s) face open. The name of the Federal was Captain Royal of Virginia but he is much a Rebel.

I wrote a few days ago saying I would like for you to subscribe for two or one newspaper (Del) and have it sent to me. You need not be afraid but that I shall get it for the mail runs regularly no matter whether we move or lie still. I received just now a paper, The Advertiser, the first Delaware paper I’ve seen since leaving home, but I saw no particular news with the exception of the death of William Browne, but that I saw in your letter.

When you write again tell me what Uncle John’s boys are doing. Tell one of them that he had better try for a cadet commission to West Point. There are now three hundred appointments to be made and I think about twenty of them are to be made at large.

Please write soon. Give my love to all, Your son, W. J. Fisher

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My Dear Father:

I haven’t received a letter from you for I don’t remember how long. But having nothing else to occupy my valuable (?) time, I will write a letter home. If you don’t get letters from me it’s not my fault. For I think I have written once about every three or four days since first moving into this camp. I believe that you write only when you received a letter from me, but when you don’t receive any from me, be sure and write every three or four days at least.

Yesterday the enemy threw three shells into our camp. Killing one man or at least wounding him so badly that he died within one half hour after he was struck. The shells fell, all three of them, within less than one hundred yards of our camp.

It’s reported that we will, in a few days, move to the front or as far at least as General McClellan’s head quarters where as one of General Sykes’s aids said we were going into a miserable, wet, swampy, unhealthy camp. If we do move but I hope we will not, we will probably be in our next camp at least three weeks to a month.

General McClellan is having his siege train brought to the front. It has been reported here for a week or two that we are going to be sent there. In my opinion we haven’t the numbers of troops that will justify an attack by our forces unprotected by siege guns on the Rebel hordes that are not encamped between here and Richmond.

Our camp is named after Major Charles S. Lovell, the commander of our Battalion. He enlisted in 1823. Served out his enlistment, returned home and went into business in Boston six months after his commission as 2nd Lieutenant was sent to him without being asked for. He has, by regular formation, risen to his present rank, Senior Major in the 10th Infantry. He was a Captain by brevet in the Mexican war and received another brevet in Service of his numerous Indian fights.

Of our other officers, we have three brigadier generals, eight colonels, and one acting commander in the Navy on the Mississippi. His name is Henry A. Maynadier, Captain 10th Infantry. We have two Cols. of Volunteers with Butler in New Orleans. Col. W. A. M. Dudley, who is a captain in our Regiment, and Col C. P. Gooding, who is fist Lt. of my company.

We have, I think, one of the largest according to height, one of the smallest officers in the U.S. Army. One, a 2nd Lieutenant by the name of Welles from Connecticut, a nephew of the Secretary of the Navy, is six feet two inches and a half in height. The other is one of the smallest specimens of humanity that I have every seen.

The tent that I stay in is a Sibeley. Since coming in camp, I have had a cot built of four crotches driven in the ground with two poles put in there length wise and boards laid on them. I have two blankets with me and a gutta percha blanket to go on that. Then I have two woolen blankets to go over me so I’m very comfortably situated.

I have nothing else at present to write so I’ll close. Please write soon…write every two or three days. Give my love to all the family.

If you see Uncle John’s boys tell them that I am expecting a letter from each of them any day. Tell Fred, if he is old enough and can pass the examination, to try for West Point and not make application through any Representative or Senator but to try for an appointment at large. That is to make application to the President direct by a beautifully written letter to the President writing of course by some experienced hand and I think he stands one chance out of three to get it. If he does this, pay will be thirty dollars per month and every thing found to a boot black.

Your affectionate son, W. J. Fisher

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Dear Angy:

I Enclose Will’s last letter which you will take care of. We also received a letter from him, the evening I carried Eliza home, dated the 15th June in which he says “When you write again tell me what Uncle John’s Boys are doing? Tell me of them that they had better try for a cadet’s commission to West Point as there are now three hundred appointments to be made, and I think about twenty of them are to be made at large.”

He also speaks of Shells being thrown by the Rebels and falling in camp and killing and wounding some men and he has escaped unhurt so far and never complains of bad health.

We are all tolerably well. This is a wet, disagreeable morning and I sent George to the post office.

Yours truly, Isaac M. Fisher

My Dear Father:

Since I last wrote I have seen some of the most fatiguing and exciting time that I have ever experienced in my life –––––––.

The 26th of June we moved camp, expecting to cross over the River and fight our way to Richmond. We marched to within a few hundred yards of the River and bivouacked for the night in a field. All the evening and a greater part of the night we could hear cannonading in our front and on our extreme right. Well, I got my overcoat and went to sleep and slept until about 3 o’clock. Then we were formed up and marched back on the same road. We were all taken completely by surprise and didn’t know what to make of the movement until we were checked back a couple of miles and formed in line of battle; then we were informed that Jackson, with his whole army amounting to nearly eighty thousand of the very best Confederate troops, was trying to outflank us on the right and that General McClellan had determined to turn his right wing and make the James River the base of operations instead of the Panmunky.

We retreated, I suppose, about five miles where then (the men) retired of our knapsacks. At about ten o’clock we were formed in line of battle and about 11 the ball opened with artillery. The way the Rebel shells flew around, well to say the least of it, it was very unhealthy. The shells they fired fell and exploded right in the 2nd Infantry and killed one man dead and wounded two more. Out of our little battalion of about two hundred men, we lost between sixty and seventy killed and wounded. Out of ten officers, we lost one killed and two of them are missing, supposed to be either killed or badly wounded.

You will see in the Tribune that the Regulars didn’t fight well; but I think when you see the official report, you will change your opinions that are if you have formed them.

I shall not say anything more about it, but we were for six hours (old Mexicano companions say) under one of the most galling fires, I think, that could be ground into us.

We retreated across the river to General McClellan’s old headquarters. We lay there that night and next day until nearly night, when we were put on the march again. We marched all night through the “White Oak Swamp.” Next day we marched on until about 10 o’clock when we were drawn up in line of battle, but as good luck would have it, we were not attacked.

We bivouacked for the night in the swamps. Next day, which was the 20th of June, we marched to a place called Turkey Hill and before night had a small artillery fight where we took one battery, one that had just come from Richmond for the indications and they had plenty of fresh bread and meat in the caissons.

The next day we had a hard fight. The Rebbles directed their whole fire in our center, but were driven back with great slaughter every time. I know we could have held our ground but I think McClellan has some deep move on hand that will take us all by surprise.

The mail is going to leave in a little while so I must close.

Please write soon Your affectionate son, W. J. Fisher

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