Fairfax Courthouse

December 21, 1862

Dear Parents,

We are now encamped in a pine grove perhaps a mile from the famous courthouse, the 15th being but a short distance from and between us and the village, while the 12th, 13th, and 14th are some little distance from us. The roads in Virginia are just now in the most unlovely condition, having been mud half axle deep and freezing hard as rocks to be almost impassable for man or belt. On leaving our old quarters at Camp Vermont, we left a guard over our baggage and they have but just now joined use They were obliged to stop at Fairfax Station 2 or 3 days and while there they performed one of the neatest "drawing" operations that we have known lately, namely, "drawing" a couple of barrels of salt pork, one of which they were obliged to give up though they managed to keep the other and it was excellent, as I can testify. I don't think the account would be any more than square had they succeeded in getting both of them. Fairfax is about the muddiest and nastiest place that can be found anywhere outside the limits of Virginia. There are some few good, handsome houses, some of them used as hospitals by the Union troops, and the rest you would hardly be able to say much in praise of. The courthouse itself, now used for a hospital, is a moderate sized two story brick building, with a small belfry, altogether not looking so well as many a northern schoolhouse. Centerville is half burned and filled only with soldiers, sutlers, and commissary stores, looks pitiable indeed. The old Rebel camps are as thick as you please around Centerville, still I would hardly suppose from the appearance of things the rebels had any such forces as we had concentrated around Washington.

From Fairfax down to Cub's Run, as far as we went, the whole country was almost a desert, strewn all over with the evidences of war: ruined buildings, dead horses, broken guns, broken wagons, old stalls, and indeed with everything used by an army. We have just had, and are now having, severe cold weather for this country. Lt. Peabody says it is as cold as they had last winter. We have managed so far to get along without getting frostbitten, and as wood is plentiful and free in this country I guess we shall survive. We are just now living in our "A" tents some of us having stoves and some not. Before our "A" tents came we managed to sleep very comfortably under our shelters by stretching two of them over a pole, buttoning another up at the head, and building up a fire at the open end over which, before our cooks came, we had to cook our coffee, roast our pork, toast our bread, and make ourselves comfortable generally. We are now having about half hard and half soft bread, and although the soft bread is a first rate article, I had rather have a few hard tacks than all soft bread.

The Weston boys in our company had a couple of boxes last night that weighed nearly 700 pounds, containing apples, pies, cakes, tobacco, brown bread, butter, cheese. on sons, dried fruits and almost everything you could mention, besides a little poultry. You ask if the Union boys have got their box get. The only one that has come was for Levi and Lt. Moore, which came just before we left Camp Vermont They gave me a little slice of butter which I rolled in paper and put in my haversack, which went well with my two loaves of bread on the march.

I have just now received a letter from home which, though it said nary a word, was as you said of our red ink, quite an institution, viz. the night cap, which will be very convenient and the paper that it was done up in, by cutting one end, makes a little bag that will be very handy to put coffee in the next time that we have to draw and cook our own coffee. You don't know half the uses to which we put things, even a jack knife has to do more service than the manufacturer ever dreamed of. It answers at once to cut bread and meat, to make the spider on which to fry it, etc. By the way, somebody has dealt out a good deal of news to some of the people of Vermont, much to their dismay no doubt. For instance, we heard by way of Vermont that the 16th had been in battle, and were pretty much all killed or captured, when the fact of the case is that we have not seen a single 'live Reb', and hare had but five men die out of the regiment. The Plymouth boys are all in good health, none of them being off duty except Abner Archer who is at Alexandria and will be sent to Brattleboro where he will probably be discharged.

Cummings, who looked so slim does as much duty as the heaviest man in the regiment, and is heavier now than he ever was before, while some of the toughest and strongest men in our company have been on the sick list quite frequently. I have not been under the Surgeon's care a single day since I came here. Uncle Joe is well and sends his respects. He is raising a big pair of whiskers and by the time he gets home you will hardly know him. We are thinking that we shall stay here for two or three weeks and propose to stockade again. Perhaps you will think that it would hardly pay for us to stockade for so short a time, but it won't take but a day or two, and we might as well do that as anything, for you know that they won't let us lie still long at a time. H.G.D.

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Contributed by Linda M. Welch, Dartmouth College, Windsor County researcher.

Return to the Index of Hezron's letters..

See also Hezron's biography, and his memoir of the Gettysburg Campaign.