Letters Home

Description

Soldiers of all ranks spent many hours writing to their loved ones at home. The letters often represented their sole lifeline to their homes and families and were many times the last communications their families had of them. This excerpt form a real letter home tells of the last battle for Port Hudson, Louisiana, a little know but militarily significant battle in the Western theater. Written by a newly married Lieutenant in the First Alabama Regiment of the Confederate Army, this letter tells of his experiences in the siege that lasted for a full 50 days and of its end. He went on to write many more letters as a prisoner of war from Johnson's Island Ohio on Lake Erie. Finally released in September of 1864 he returned to the wife he had not seen in more than 100 weeks. Through the many months of battle and then imprisonment, he and his wife and family exchanged hundreds of letters, exchanging news, their worries and their love for each other. When this solider came "marching home" he carreid with him these letters, creased with many readings. The Civil War Letter Home: Port Hudson, La. July 12, 1863 My Own Darling Julia, I tried to write you the day after we were surrounded but found it almost impossible to do so.....I am becoming a little more reconciled to my fate and will try to write you a little longer letter, although it is almost impossible for me to concentrate my thoughts upon anything. My thoughts are with you and the dear ones at home, during the day, and my dreams of you at night but it is no use and I have made up my mind to look on the bright side if I can find any and not worry about it. I feel that I have done my duty and that the entire Regiment have-- never did men stay at their post better. We were at the breast works 47 or 48 days and nights from the time we were first ordered out to the day of the surrender 50 days, we were on very short rations all the time but the last week we had no meat but mule and horse..... Our company and Company A were detailed by Gen. Gardener to man the guns of our regiment and heavy pieces on the breast works. I had command of a gun all the time and was in some very exposed places but a Kind Providence protected me.... On Thursday the 28th of May, I was ordered to take charge of a gun at the lower battery and attack the gunboats. I think this was the hottest place I was in. I fired the first gun. Soon the 6 mortars and the whole fleet opened on us. One ten inch shell exploded within 2 feet of me between the wheel of my gun and the gun--- exploded on the platform slightly wounding Joe B. but he would not leave his post..... We drove the enemy back. I fired 49 times that morning. I remained on that battery about ten days and was then put in charge of a battery in the breast works where I remained during the remainder of the siege...... Your loving husband, M. E Pratt