Civil War Letter from Oliver, Company C, 13th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers

Civil War Letter from Oliver, Company C, 13th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers
Harpers Ferry, Maryland — October 1, 1861
 
This letter, written in the early months of the American Civil War, offers a vivid firsthand account from a Union soldier stationed at the strategically vital location of Harpers Ferry. The 13th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was part of the Union forces guarding the Potomac River and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor. The author, Oliver, describes the regiment’s movements, camp life, interactions with local Confederate sympathizers, and the chaotic aftermath of Union raids across the river. Harpers Ferry, already famous for John Brown’s 1859 raid, had changed hands multiple times and remained a tense frontier between Union and Confederate territory in the fall of 1861.
 
Transcription:
 
Quarters Co. C 13th Regt. M. V.
Harpers Ferry, Md.
Oct. 1st, 1861
 
Dear Father and Mother,
 
I can imagine you awaiting a letter from me, and you have been for a good many days wondering that I have not written. The reason is that I have been expecting a change in my position and did not feel like communicating with anyone, but I can wait no longer. So I set out this morning, in the tenth week of my absence from home, to write to the “old folks at home.”
 
You see by the date of my letter that I am at that famous place where old John Brown set all Virginia by the ears, and where so many changes have been since this war began. We left Monocacy (from which place I wrote you last) yesterday, arriving here by way of the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Two of our Companies, I & K, have been encamped here for about five weeks and have had a pretty sharp and active time of it.
 
Major Gould is in command and said he was right glad to see us, for he fancied that the Rebels might come down on us in force, and three Companies are better able to resist an attack than two. We are quartered very comfortably in an old warehouse on the edge of the canal and immediately under the precipice that forms the riverside of Maryland Heights. We are not in the village at the Ferry in Virginia, but on the Maryland side, keeping a vigilant watch and guard.
 
Our pickets are posted along the river at a distance of about 400 yards apart, extending for 5 miles, so you can readily conceive that we have quite a work to do. The Rebels are in the habit of coming within about a mile of the river into the village of Bolivar and getting intelligence of our movements, but they have to be lively about it. For we have two men posted as lookouts on the top of the Heights, who let us know when anything occurs on the other side, and if needed, a detachment is sent over the river “to clean them out.”
 
Since I & K came here, they have captured two cannon, two fine mortars, a brass Howitzer, and several horses and mules, besides cleaning out several Secession Stores and bringing off any amount of plunder. You must know that the town of Harpers Ferry is almost deserted. The stores are closed and it is a most desolate place, as most of the stores are owned by men who are in the Rebel Army. The boys sometimes get into them and carry off all that they can lay their hands on.
 
Our Company, with a number of the boys from I & K, had leave to cross this morning. I started with the rest, but there was such a crowd that I was among the last and did not get over until they had completed the sack of a fine apothecary store owned by a surgeon in the Rebel Army named Claggett. I went in as they were finishing their work, and such a scene of ruin and riot I never saw, and hope to see but seldom here. They took a vast amount of plunder of all sorts—some of it of very queer character for soldiers’ use: one had a galvanic battery and a pair of saddle bags; another a lot of ground ginger; another several syringes; and another a lot of empty bottles. So you see there was variety if not utility. I got nothing.
 
I must close as I wish to put in a note for Julia as I send this with my last postage stamp. If you can, send me a stamp once in a while. You will be sure to have a letter in return.
 
As ever with love,  
Oliver
 
Direct to Washington D. C.
 
This document provides valuable insight into the 13th Massachusetts Infantry’s service in the Shenandoah Valley region during the autumn of 1861, a period of watchful stalemate before the larger campaigns of 1862. Letters like Oliver’s humanize the Civil War experience, revealing the mixture of duty, adventure, homesickness, and moral ambiguity that characterized life for many Union volunteers.