it will be the hundred fiftieth anniversary of wilson eight bentleys birthday so we're planning a rather special symposium on that occasion which will probably be held at the jericho elementary school some of us may not think so yeah oh and spring will soon be here we all hope and this month of course it's the whole series we want to have a civil war in our winter series because of the the anniversary also eight hundred sixty one eight hundred sixty five of the civil war and of course of this time of year that palm sunday when weekend  when of course lincoln was drafted assassinated brings things home a little closer few years ago i've given through the years a number of collections of letters which i've recliners from the family the most volunteers and service young men and women too who served in the civil war before from our population to any other state in the union the collection which  injured tree regiment had killer eight to his parents and his brother albert beginning in september thirteenth aged sixty two soon after the eleventh from our heavy artillery regiment arrived in maryland two letters containing information about washington d c his reactions of course as a young lad from the rural vermont camp life work detail and descriptions of the countryside in your camp naturally he was very curious about agriculture and the farming conditions in western maryland the letters also contained in them contain two letters from his regiment and three tailor grading and there are very important documents for a live society to have but also i think for the history of war and the history of medical conditions during the war because it was interesting to see about two hundred in the regiment and they all of the listed each day whether they are on active duty or they were little active they were ill and what kind of illness which they had certainly from a medical science born a few of them a very important to review and i'm certain that many medical historians problem the first thing they look at are these morning reports during the respective wars which we hear one of the interesting things i think this evening jack explained he's going to read to our about letters from vermont civil war veterans civil war soldiers initially jack's also his forebears seven generations of them come from fletcher vermont so he's very much in viewed with the vermont heritage but interestingly one of the unique things we might see that the letters are also a form of poetry in  recent years of course the great i suppose poet laureate of inserting american war poetry is of course walt whitman and through the centuries there's an interesting article in this week's new yorker you may wish to read and it's just on the subject of her doing the seeding it's on poetry and letters in the recent conflicts in iraq and afghanistan and george packer goes on to remark that it takes about five years after a conflict before serious poetry is written or people begin to review journals and letters about those conflicts but not of course as we  know one of the great is one of the great american poets and he was followed of course in world war one the brits are very big on this i suppose because of the great problems in the tragedy of world war one robert and then of course this tradition was followed world war two consider to be prep one of the most powerful emotive phrases on the english language the vessel mary jane dickerson is with us this evening with her north carolina lydia lineage she may feel a little differently but i think the phrase in the dooryard last bloom is one of the most powerful imagery we have a poetry about conflict in the english language so with that i would like to read to you just briefly here not to steal your thunder jack but i thought it's a good way to put this in perspective is good and retain a short letter and two or three telegrams from washington from the war department boldly vermont on april twelfth thirteen fourteen eight hundred sixty three i think you'll know from this how wonderful our post office was and that here are probably as good or better  and of course the telegrams are very official eagle i think because this twitter which the enough to create other kinds of problems the letter for letter which i will read dated sunday april twel he says it is the worst form of the disease frank appears to be cheerful i have hopes of him from the fact that the surgeon has said the same of several others who then recover  we have one of the best surgeons in the country and everything possible will be done for his speedy recovery he is very comfortably situated i should send you a telegram to morrow morning please wri soon and if you could describe the instructions if you should die please send me your instructions to dispose the body respectively yours jackson a lo vermont on tuesday april fourteenth at three o'clock and eight minutes reads from the war department to harm children frank his dead body will be sent to paul simon jackson  and the third telegram comes mr kilbourne dear sir i sent a copy of the above yesterday by mr him in french which i suppose you may have now receiv enclosed i sent another announcing the death of your son i engage the young man to take the enclosed to you immediately and told him you would pay him for his travail in taking this telegram to you  physically frank entered the hospital on friday night and on sunday when we visited him we asked him if he thought he was ready to die he said he did he didn't ask we ask himself if he how we felt prepared to die he said he did not he just aren't to have us read him some passages from the bible he did so and we sang to him he said he was ready and willing to die he was very confused and candid during the whole time he was in his right mind until almost the last he knew all of his friends surrounding him and his time for the last ten and then i go back to the phrase that means earlier on and i'm sure a family in april when you saw the dates twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen similar brothers were having experience in the evening that come powerful prose to read here what what i will be doing is reading some prose from the farm folks that none of what home graduated from higher than the eighth grade and  i like to do it rather informally so if you have questions as i'm speaking just you know a shout out and we'll try to answer it right there and  want to give you a little bit of a hint of what they thought in their own words now brooks mentioned the the sadness you know the death and so forth and that's one half of what i'm talking about but it's also drawl already too and i like to call my title death and drollery these fellows from fletcher had a marvelous way of being matter of fact and they could start out a letter saying so and so does and you know disease or wounded or whatever and then in the next paragraph let that go by completely and come up with a classic one line understated vermont zinger which just makes you howl and i hope to relate several of those  tonight i often feel that i could sit down with any number of those fellows and just think that you know i'm sitting with my aunt and uncle in the farmhouse and fletchers up in this the way they talk is exactly the same and it's just a delight to read but let me kind of set the stage for this we're going to talk about the folks from company h the second vermont regiment that's often known as the fletcher company of volunteers because fletcher produce such a disproportionately high number of volunteers for this company the total of sixty enlisted in in that company this is a roster my copy of the original roster of which i keep safely locked away of the of the original list east and in it is a fellow by the name of urban woodbury and you may have remembered and seon on the mountain gives  originally a member of this of this company even though the free press says he was from  barely there's a cast of characters that might be helpful to remember five people basically and it centers around two sisters janus my great great grandmother and her sister is married to chester k leach who is the author of most of these letters that i am going to relate to you many of the letters are written to gramma jane's husband my great great grandfather zinah chase and  you will permit me i'd like to read those letters while sitting in jail in zona chase's chair which is occupies a nice prominent place in our house and is used every single day  a little bit more about the company before we get into the personalities involved fletcher at the time the company was mustered its nine hundred sixteen souls that was down over one hundred from the census ten years prior to that fletcher was already diminishing in size and it would continue to diminish for the next hundred years it wasn't until the last census or maybe the one before that that fletcher population started to creep up a little bit times were tough there and so these these fellows were certainly looking for some some gainful employment and they did in spades the there's a total of two hundred and forty seven letters that were written by chester and friends to the people in in fletcher predominantly and has anybody ever seen this book that i just see a show of hands ok this is called dear wife it's a compilation of all of the letters that he wrote to his wife and it's in the collection of the bailey how library at  the university of vermont with the exception of thirteen of them which i have in my possession which were written to my great great grandfather and passed down through my side of the family so i transcribed those letters and they're included we know of about the civil war written by a single vermonter and covers well it takes a it takes a fleck to accompany through the first battle of bull run through deaths in this company by disease was twelve twenty were killed in action and the second vermont as a regiment of eight hundred sixty six men and served longer and had more  casualties than any other unit there were two hundred thirty three men killed and one hundred thirty six died from disease the disease primarily were mom https hooping cough typhoid chicken pox dysentery diarrhea malaria and vermont regiments for some strange reason seem to get hit the hardest i think one one doctor tripple from tripoli army hospital is named there for he says probably because they lived in such a healthy environment that they didn't have any community when they got down there so i mention the cast of brother he is probably eight eighteen years old if that got a real good sense of humor he enlisted and became the fifer for the for the company so it's always a pleasure when i when i read his letters because he's got that light hearted outlook on life and a very humorous turn of phrase so i selected two or three of them that are rather fun to to listen  pick pick up around the twentieth of november carry you through the camp life and tell the middle of march of the following spring where they depart then to go on the peninsular campaign and try to  invest richmond the camp of the second vermont was located in mclean virginia and everybody know where the cia headquarters is right about where the cia headquarters is right across chain bridge and so this all takes place this or they were essentially assigned you know a skirmish or details to try to protect the  and so forth so without going into any further detail let me just go ahead and and talk about a few of these letters read a few of them to you in their own words and again if you've got questions fleece please shut up the these fellows are very forthright in talking about their officers  you want but the truth our captain is about as good as us dick he smokes and drinks then drinks and smokes then changes the program and smokes and drinks both together coming into can't i took my pillow and doubled it up in my blanket and started on foot for camp and when i got a short distance across chain bridge a man overtook me with a carriage and asked me to ride which i was very glad to accept as he was going to the  and the wind was blowing a regular gale which still continues to blow making it rather uncomfortable when camp but i rested very well last night i have cabbage one of the knit coats and i found the tent which i left occupied by sawyer smith albury they have a fireplace in the ground like all the rest they make a very good fire but the wind has blown so since i got here they smoke some the tent we occupy is an old rickety concern it is thin and of holes so that the wind blows straight through i shall make requisition for a better one soon to the quartermaster the company is almost destitute of knives and forks and cups but are going to have more soon i think i shall make some sort of arrangements for boarding myself and then the next and as he says the men are dying very fast in the fifth regiment about a dozen have died i believe since they came here two died in one company today whether it is the surgeons fault i don't know our regiment have some good surgeons i think been in the hospital three or four days he describes the thanksgiving dinner he had with his commanding officer the colonel said we had for supper oysters and biscuits and butter berry sauce and tea a very good supper the colonel is liked by the regiment much better than formerly there is not much i dislike now for the winter but picket duty not that there is any more danger than any other place been out in the cold and marching around these rainy dark muddy night nights through mud holes and every other place you can think that i fell down only three times into the mud on thursday night it is so arranged now that the men are on post but three hours and twenty four but it takes out a great number every  third hollis tries to write back and has his first letter first sentence says i will attempt to answer your letter which i received in due season but i guess i shall fail for my hand trembles so that i hardly can hold a pen i've been sick a week and up and rather hard up to day was taken with a shakes in the first place and have been down ever since and after the  talk its over you might want to come up and take a look at this letter which explains that and you can see where hollis has a very shaky hand and i've transcribed it so that you can read back and forth on this but it's an interesting letter to  like to well i'm talking past these around just to give you an idea who these folks are that we're talking about and if you would please just pass him around up toward the back and maybe at the end you can stick him on the table in the back this is chester later right here and this is my great great grandfather zinah chase the others are fellow members of the company and i fortunately can't pinpoint their names but they did get together from time to time to to you know as a reunion this  is gramma jane chase and this young lad you may not recognize him but many of you know him and he is reverend phil chase who used to be the and this has if you look if you like genealogy charge you can read all about it  they went through like four or five different commanding generals because there was something wrong with each one of them they were either too too shy to get out in and expose the their army or they were pressured by politicians from back in washington it was it was a real mess it seemed that most of the us from the northern forces the further away they got from washington the more successful they were and there may be that may be a metaphor for things that are going on now ok december fifth just a writes dear wife once more in my seated with pen in hand to inform you of my health trials and tribulations etc my health is still very good except feeling a little dull from b and picket last night i've just got a letter from you glad to hear that you were away all well when you may say to yourself i wonder what chester is doing tonight you may just keep a long and say i guess he's on picket and you will hit the mark about once in three days if you was within speaking distance i would ask you in and show you our kitchen parlor and bedroom all in one we have them all new rigged and furnish hollis i think acts a little better today but is rather slim  december eighth that he's been out in been doing a little bit of origin and stuff for three days past has been very warm here and when i think that it is the eighth of december i can't help thinking of the difference from what it is in vermont at that time of the year this is the climate for anyone that is has has a dread of the cold of winter friday we went out on another forge an expedition our regiment with two or three others went as far as the end they brought in from fifty to seventy five loads of corn in the like i suppose it is secession property confederate property was fair game  only twenty or thirty miles outside of washington that's where they went to get their food stuffs yesterday sergeant smith and i went to washington to see the sights and do a little trading it the following week he writes another letter to way to dear wife amp to maxfield was in here just now to get a pass to washington with his brother who has died from the fifth regiment he is going to send his body home he died with the diptheria he had been sick with the measles and it got quite smart and begun to do like duty when he took gold the army would  had the wherewithal and i certainly could request to have the soldier's body returned home and i'll relate one of the company h fellows who whose body was returned that way otherwise they were basically buried where they fell  was he did like his food stand he says you know that when i first begun to eat sweet potatoes i did not like them but i am now got so i like them full as well as irish potatoes we have potatoes about every meal we have to pay if it's three cents per pound for irish and five cents per pound for sweet we had a rarity today for dinner at this place and that was put in it went first rate past and went on picket tuesday and when i got in wednesday morning i was pretty much used up i had a very hard headache and was quite fevery the doctor gave me a dose of salts which operated freely and yesterday i began to feel a little better and today i'm better still so much so that i think i should be alright in a day or two today they are cold sores coming all over my lips which did not feel very funny all  it will be rather lonesome hollis hated to have them leave because they they will have to do what the band did before occasionally he talks about promotion as a running theme and here of captain sawyer i suppose it is subtle who is to be promoted at last lieutenant tracy of company k is to be our captain sawyer gets promoted to second lieutenant in company f i believe i hope for his good he will take a drop less once in a while he gets pretty well cocked sometimes december twenty fourth christmas eve dear and there is considerable sickness in the regiment now almost every day someone they get cold by exposure on picket good many of them which brings on a fever we have america many four five in the hospital sam wilcox for one he has just taken with fever and is pretty sick sam is a good boy and i hope he may get along and get well soon john ayres is another one who's just gone to the hospital he was taken with a pain in the bowels hiram soules lera be in one white bend the hospital some time but all are on the gain i'm afraid that we should use lose a great many by death before it comes warm weather again i for one should be glad to see spring  should write to his folks today i don't think sam is dangerous yet but there's no knowing what ma in the letter a couple of days after that there was a loop had been a little incident in camp and and chester writes there was quite a bad accident in our camp today about noon we the officers were up to the edge to stand for a recitation of tactics and we heard a stir outside and on looking outside lieutenant tyler's tent all on fire it took fire from the stove pipe which went through the back side of the tent clothing bedding and his equipment all we the last must be one hundred dollars quite a loss for this place several days later at the end of the month he writes i'm sorry to say that i fear samuel wilcox stands a narrow chance of getting well he is a very sick boy we have heard nothing from his folks in answer to letters written them since he was taken sick sick  three days later in little encouraging sam wilcox is thought to be a little better some hopes that he will get up again and he continues on i had heard of that frank staples death and was speaking to sawyer a day or two ago about seeing him on the bridge no one knows who will go next i have read that in war more died by disease than by being killed in battle which proves itself more than true and january sixth one of the funnier letters was written and the anybody has ever been in the military lived in a barracks with a bunch of guys lived in a boy scout tent at boy scout camp or done anything with a bunch of guys you can imagine the dancer they goes on chester writes ok back backtrack a little bit washington is now and always has been noted haven for ladies of ill repute and the second vermont regiment were no saints so with that kind of his background paulus is complaining that something ails his private parts and we tell him if he had been to washington we should know what and he continues in the very next paragraph he segues it into this he said i wrote you in my last that sam wilcox was better but since then he has failed so there is but little hope if any of his recovering he has been the sickest person i've seen for many a says i received a dispatch by telegraph saturday from francis inquiring if he was living if not to send his body home so i sent back that he was better as he just seemed to be at that time january ten after his uncle who was the pfeiffer and so this hollis was my great grandfather dear in again i see myself the letter an answer a answer a letter from you which i received last night i was glad to hear you was well but think you was a little excited or you would have signed your name and is obviously run over to her sister jane's and to be in attendance when the baby was bored i thought you must be sick by the looks of the outside of the envelope my health is good and the holidays too of course you will hear before you get this that samuel wilcox is dead he died tuesday the seventh he was liked by the whole company who feel to mourn at his death i think he had as good care as possible for the place  will probably learn before you get this yesterday morning one of our company by the name of hewitt was found dead in his tent there were three others in the temple they did not discover it until he was dead tell about nine o'clock he laid on his face the doctor thought he died in a fit he has not been very well this winter he closes on a little bit more him or said no we have no captain yet the hope we may have before long we've had a deal of business to do lately which the commander of a company has to do typically a captain and which i have got about sick of doing he's a lieutenant i get ten dollars per month extra but that don't half pay the captain say they all want to be promoted to lieutenants ok january thirteenth three days later hollis is well and has taken up a new trade in that his pipe smoking whether he's going to smoking or not i don't know the boys got a sort of route from which they would allow pipes our boys are in very good health at present there are some in the hospital but none very sick and a couple days later he says i think the army is very demoralizing for his nuts and nothing strange to see hollis with a pipe in his mouth so smoking was a nasty thing back then i guess to january twenty third dear and us about in your last about the expenses of senden samuel home and i forgot to say the whole expense including the telegraph dispatch was fifty seven dollars and twenty eight cents the undertakers charge was twenty six dollars and the express thirty dollars telegraph a dollar twenty eight smith went to georgetown with the corpse and the undertaker took it to the express office we sent another of our company home dead yesterday his name was loomis one of the recruits enlisted by captain burnham this is several days later you may look scuse me us some questions in a previous letter about samuel wilcox which i neglected to answer one was about the flag that was around the coffin and i must say i know nothing about it anyway but presume it was put on at the borough he's means cambridge us ok it was put on of the borough the other was whether we was sick in the hospital it was lately built or at a house well i would say neither one but was in the hospital tent or tents or two or three put together there's been no use made to the new hospital for the sick until day before yesterday friday when it was taken possession of and he closes on a humorous note again and he says well now i will give you the position and occupation of the occupants of this ear dhamma c e o at the present time half past eight hall is sits just at the right of the entrance at the table writing and i am just at his left writing on the three legged crotch with a barrel head on top this is our center table and answers many purposes on the left of our tent as our bed on which sits lieutenant appleton smith and sawyer the first writing on a book and the last looking over a magazine appleton does not tent with us but his gentleman as he calls and they were allowed to hire us assistance does not tent with us but his gentleman as he calls him is rather drunk and he says he will be damned if he will make a fire we're all well and enjoying ourselves like a hog in a mud hole at least at least we are in mud whether whether we enjoy it or not the weather continues to be very bad not hardly a day pass and but it rains more or less but generally more are getting along about as usual only one thing a little different and that is the mud is getting a little deeper every day we had another bit of snow storm on friday night which added to the mud greatly and helps to add comfort to camp life especially one has when one has any business to do around camp this is on february second he will likely do well without he gets on a bender as he does occasionally i hope it may be that means of his reforming a little if he sees a possibility of raising in rank sawyer's right on his dignity now since he is lieutenant but i hope he will not get quite as tight as he has sometimes february thirteenth not much news from these parts the most is the coming in of twenty eight contraband negroes yesterday mostly women and children they arrived at our picket line about daylight and came in with them when they were relieved they had a two horse team for the transportation of their  baggage february eighteenth my health is good as are all of the flexor folks our time is very much occupied of late with doing nothing except crawling around in the mud i expect our winter is about gun last thursday a very pleasant warm day and dried up the mud considerable but since then has froze snowed rained and thawed so now it is clear m quick as it is today the february twenty fourth he writes dear n you say in one letter that you have received a valentine from washington i guess i will have to inquire into the matter a little think some of the gents must have been fascinated by your charms and had visited him down there in the fall prior hollis closes a letter to his sister and in a typical hollis fashion i shall have to stop for want of gab my brain is getting exhausted and paper growing small come to hand and i suppose it will be for my benefit to write you a line to save a punishment as you threaten one but what shall i write we have no news and i'm not smart enough to write sentimental so i will write nonsense i am full of that you know i have been writing to mother tonight but i'm afraid it won't be very interesting to wear as you wanted to know how i enjoyed myself i must say that i never enjoyed myself any better than i have this winter perhaps i have enjoyed myself better at times but to take the time right along every day this winter has been the best and passed off the quickest of any time in my life when we get tired of playing checkers euchre etc we can just step out onto a hill close by and see any amount of soldiers drilling or scuffling etc etc the most sport we have had was the other day when we had a little snowstorm just enough to snowball and you better guess they all improve the opportunity we have all sorts of ways to make time pass away i don't know as i want to be there to find a place to work meaning there and fletcher i don't know as i want to be there to find a place to work for as there is none that will pay as high wages is uncle sam and let a fellow lay still half the time no more this time perhaps you will get sick of what i wrote the last time is one extended period where they're right there in between so and i'll close mike talk today when he's on the move you know and he's halfway down the peninsula and they're starting the summer campaign and you know the also realized that he and the troops hadn't been properly trained up one reason that the battle first bull run was such a disaster you know they just didn't have adequate training  just called it quits or slowed down quite a bit with the exception of people like jackson who who had more mobility they had like a horse and you know they could move up and down the valley shenandoah valley pretty much it well shortly and they have now left camp griffin on march twenty first  headlines this camp a possum you see oh i had this letter well the reason i call it camp a possum is because i don't know the name of this can't don't know as it has any name but the boys caught in a possum the next day we came here and then most of them call it and finally march twenty first he writes a letter to my grandfather brothers and says camp near clouds mills virginia i don't know where clouds mills is it's north of fort monroe i tried to in it's a big tall one with a ball on top and i said how did you know that and she says well when i first got my nursing degree in one nine hundred twenty one i took care of an leech so he would she was the nurse for yes but just a comment we talked earlier and first of all thank you for sharing your family's letters with us and in my time as a soldier i think that we've lost something by the fact that we have e mail you know i tell my friends  i've written to you from fast deployments hate print those e mails out and send me copies because someday i might want to pass them on to my heirs very few of them actually done that and the fact that we don't really take pen and paper anymore in the union army thank you very much