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                                                              July 3, 1863

Dear Favorite Cousin Ethan,

I am sorry that I have not gotten back to you with your

questions on how big my regiment is, what is my regiment, how many people died in my regiment or captured/missing or injured, what kind of weapons my regiment is using, who my leader in battle is, what it is like to be a union soldier, what we eat, what kind of uniforms we wear, and where do we sleep?  Cousin, you have a lot of questions.

       The number of men in our regiment is around 1,370. My regiment is the 148th Pennsylvania volunteer infantry. So far I have been very lucky, seven of our officers and 121 men have been killed, thirty four officers and 581 men were wounded, and four officers and 168 men were reported captured or missing. So 915 or 66% of my regiment suffered from one of those things. But so far I have not suffered a scratch. We use a lot of weapons but I will name four. Some of the artillery we use are mortars, and parrot rifles. Some of the guns we use are spring field muskets, and Starr revolvers, to name a few. My leader in battle is James Adams Beaver.

       It is not the greatest being a Union solder, but its okay. When I signed up for this I thought I was signing up for four months but I have been in the army for a couple of years now and it doesn’t look like its going to end anytime soon. We don’t get a lot of food but I think we are better off than some of the other regiments on the Union and the Confederate sides.

A usual meal consists of hardtack, water, corn and if we are lucky, maybe a little bit of dried beef, salt pork or some bacon. Our uniforms were made out of basic heavy wool. They keep us warm in the winter but in the summer it gets extremely hot and with all the cannon firing going on, it just makes you feel even hotter and in some cases the men in other regiments have died of sun stroke because of the uniforms they are wearing, the cannon firing and the things they are carrying.

       The typical shelter we have for us men is a tent. One type of tent we use is a wedge ten.  This tent has an area of 7 feet by 7 feet. Four men usually sleep here but often six do.

I think my regiment is fighting for a good because we need to free the slaves.  They have suffered so much and they deserve to be free and be regular citizens like us. I truly believe that we should free the slaves and can free the slaves. I am sorry to say, Cousin, that I would rather stay with the Union because I would rather fight for the slave and to keep the United States together. There might be less supplies and less food because we have a bigger arm but we will make do with what we have. I hope to keep in touch with you and hope that we both survive this war.

 

                                                       Sincerely,

                                                       William Johnson

                                                       Pte. of the 148th

                                                       Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

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