In this excerpt from Winslow, Private Joshua Winslow, nineteen years old and fighting with the New York 34th Voluntary Infantry writes home on September 11, 1862, six days before the Battle of Antietam.
My Dearest Sarah,
After a hard march of five days, we have stopped, at least momentarily. We are near Hagerstown, Maryland. I’m not sure when I will be able to post this letter. We have been moving quickly.
We have been ordered to rest for at least this day and maybe the next. I am writing this letter as the sun is setting over a tent-covered ridge to the west. No fires are permitted after dark, lest the glow of them alert the rebel forces of our position.
The place where we are was once a farm, or more accurately several farms covering hundreds of acres of fertile ground blanketing graceful and gentle hills. If there were a place to rival the beauty of our home in New York, this would be it. What few buildings stand here, barns and farmhouses, have been occupied by the officers as temporary command posts.
I can imagine what this place looked like before the tens of thousands of the Union Army arrived. It was a quiet place and gentle in its stillness. Now, in any direction I look I see an ocean of men and tents, all moving in small waves. It’s as if a large living organism has engulfed this place and forever destroyed its tranquility. When we arrived here yesterday we thought that we were the last, but more men kept arriving through the night. There must be over ten thousand men here by now and they are still arriving. They have come from all over the Union, from Maine and Vermont, from a place called Deer Island, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from Illinois and Michigan and Ohio.
And also from New York. Sweet New York! I remember this time of year up in Winslow as my favorite. The stifling heat of August has broken but the days are still warm and golden, perfect for a picnic near a lake with my love. When the sun goes down, the evenings are cool again. Down here, the heat has not broken and that five-day march was brutal. Several men in our unit collapsed with heat exhaustion and had to be left behind. Many of the men arriving in camp are on stretchers. The drummer boys formed bucket brigades to distribute water from the stream flowing through the middle of the camp.
When I think about the purpose of this convergence of humanity, this temporary city, I try to imagine the destruction it is capable of and I become fearful. I imagine all of these men and their rifles, headed toward me and I can see no escape and I am helpless. Surely we are all here for a reason. Somewhere beyond the horizon is a similar force trying to find us as much as we are trying to find them.
Rumors fly around and buzz through the camp like so many gnats. First we hear that we will continue west and meet the rebels in northwestern Virginia. Then we hear that the rebels are heading north through central Maryland and that we will attack them as they pass to the east of us. Another rumor tells us that they are already to the north of us in Pennsylvania. Still another says that they are to the south of us near Sharpsburg. For all of these to be true we would have to be surrounded by them. As unlikely as that may be, it still gives us all an uneasy feeling that we don’t talk about much.
Our Captain spends most of his time over at the command post that has been set up in a nearby farmhouse. Several times today he has walked through our encampment on foot. Normally when we see him and he addresses us, he is on horseback. Today, he walked through our camp, making sure we were resting, and that we had enough to eat. He is a man of some forty years with a graying beard and a regal manner. He has always had a stern look about him that appeared to be his duty to maintain, but today the sternness was replaced by a deeper, more serious look. His boots were scuffed and his uniform was still dusty from our march as he walked through our camp with his lieutenants. He spoke to us in small groups. He seemed to know more than he would tell us, but nobody was going to speak up and ask a Captain what was going to happen. Instead, he diverted our attention by asking us about ourselves, our names, where we were from. When I said, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York, sir,” he turned and approached me. I’ve now gotten used to how people react when I tell them I have the same name as my hometown, but this was different. As he walked toward me, a look of recognition come over his face as he repeated, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York.”
“Son, is your father Erastus Winslow?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“I know your father, son. We attended Harvard together and I visited him in Winslow some twenty-years ago. We have met several times in Manhattan when we were both there on business.”
Then he did something that I’ve never seen an officer do to a private infantryman. He held out his hand to me. After over a year in the army, serving with boys from all different stations of life, I had forgotten that I come from a family of wealth and position. Indeed, I had spent most of my time keeping that a secret and in many ways I found comfort in fitting in with the rest of the fellows. Of course, all the boys from Winslow know, but many others in the 24th didn’t. When I was growing up, I always felt a weight on my shoulders walking down Main Street in Winslow. My family owns most of the town, so I could never be sure if people were friendly to me because of me or because of my father’s position. I also felt the weight of expectation on me not only from my father, but from nearly everyone in town.
The anonymity of being just myself in the army, not a town, not a family, not a legacy, felt liberating. While others bristled as they adapted to military discipline, I embraced it because it made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was like anybody else. It’s hard to find your way when you feel the expectations of your family and community weighing on you. I think that when I finally return home, it will be with knowledge of myself that I never would have been able to gain at home.
The small throng of soldiers that were around the Captain and myself were looking at me and several more who were nearby and heard what was happening joined the group.
I glanced at the other men and realized that I could not deny my heritage any more than I could deny my loyalty and devotion to them. I may have forgotten it, but it’s also who I am, now, it seemed as though I stood form them with this Captain, as if his recognition of me was his recognition of all of them.
I took his hand in mine. His grasp was firm and he pulled me closer. Quietly, for my ears only he said, “Your father is a fine man and I know he is proud of you, son. God bless you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He released my hand and I took a step back from him. He stood there silently for a moment and raised his hand to the side of his face ran his fingers down the edge of his beard. His sternness was replaced momentarily by a puzzled look and his eyes suddenly seemed tired. Then he regarded the whole crowd that had gathered around us and said loudly to them, “And God Bless all of you.”
Then he gripped the hem of his dusty uniform coat, tugged on it firmly to straighten it out over his shoulders, and nodded to his lieutenants that it was time to continue their tour.
It was probably this event that has put me in such a reflective mood for the rest of the day. It is obvious to me that we are soon to be in as large a battle as any of us has ever seen. All of us can sense it. Even if all we know are rumors and all of them cannot be true, our experience tells us that one of them actually is true.
In this past year I have seen many things that I never would have imagined growing up in Winslow. Most of my experiences have been bad and I’d prefer never to experience them again. The hatred in the eyes of those who should be our brothers and sisters but are instead our enemy. Firing our weapons at them and cutting them down during the riot in Baltimore. Seeing an army move over the landscape, destroying everything in its path, not by fighting but simply by trampling it with its sheer size and consuming every barrel of grain and every bit of livestock just to feed its hungry hordes. Seeing my closest friends slowly dying from disease and wondering asking them and not me.
I fear that this war, which we all thought would be over by last spring, is going to be far more destructive than anything we might have imagined. I can only look around at the ocean of men stretching out in all directions to the horizon to tell me that. I fear that I have only had a glimpse of the horrors that are to come.
During all this time, the letters that you have written to me have sustained me. They are now a quite handsome stack and I carry them in a small leather bag that hangs over my shoulder. I can’t count how many times I’ve read each one of them. I read them in the morning when I awake. I read them when we are marching down a dusty road, I read them when we are resting on the side of the road and I read them by firelight before slipping into my tent and dreaming about you.
In all of the letters you’ve written to me, I’ve seen numerous references to my smile. It’s not something that I would normally think about myself, but you mention it when talking about that first dance we had, the smile I would greet you with when you came into my father’s store, and the smile you imagine I will have for you on the day I finally return home.
When you wrote about that smile, you told me how it made you feel, as if you were the most important person in the world for me and how special it made you feel that your presence alone could bring such joy. I’ll tell you now and forever that I was totally unaware that I was smiling and that it can only mean that it was simply a true and natural expression of how you make me feel.
There is a sense of joy and wonder that I feel. It is like that sense of joy and wonder that we find when we are out walking along a beautiful stream or through the woods. It’s that sense of wonder about all of Creation. And in addition to all those beautiful things that God has given the world, he also, for some reason that he alone knows, added you. I spend all my days and nights filled with joy and wonder that you exist, and I can’t imagine that living in a world that didn’t have you in it would be worth living.
In all the hardships that I have endured, and in all the hardships that I will endure, my faith has been and will always be tested. My faith in myself, my faith in our cause, my faith in humanity and ultimately my faith in all the world. It is the joy and wonder that that you bring to me, and that alone, that sustains my faith. In a world that is seemingly headed down a path of violence and destruction, your letters, and you yourself, tell me that no matter where we may be now and whatever may happen to us, the world is ultimately a beautiful and just place and that God’s covenant with us is enduring. I know this because he has given me you.
All my love,
Joshua
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