Lawrence County IN Archives Military Records.....Chess, Robert R. October 30, 1861 Civilwar - Letters 16th reg. Indiana Volunteers ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: F Vaughn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006206 September 17, 2008, 3:42 pm Letter To William Gasaway From Robert R. Chess camp of the 1rth reg. Indiana Vol. somewhere on the potomac dated October 30th 1861. To William Gasaway River Vale, Lawrence County Ind. (half brother of Robert) Dear Brother I have a few spare moments to write this morning and i thought i would answer your two last to me. I and Seth and Jim and Charley wrote you a letter last Sunday week ago and Seth and the rest of the boys gave you some plans to make the girls keep straight, but we got over in Virginia and Charley lost his knapsack and our big joint letter in it while we were over there and of course you never got the letter-so i will write you a few words for each of them, but before so doing i will write a few words for myself. In the first place i will tell you that our health is still good and that we are now in camp near Seneca Mills about 7 miles from Edward's Ferry where we crossed the Patomac in such a hurry on last friday night or saturday morning. Our camp is in a pine thicket and i am today on police duty helping to clean out a road around the camp for the guards to hop around and am now playing shirk on the Officer-of-the-day as i have slipped off and taken my seat under a beautiful pine bush to write instead of working with the crowd. So you see i am rather inclined to shirk a little from duty. We are expecting to go into winter quarters soon and then we will have fine times. You mention to know how we were off for winter clothes, ect. Well i expect that we will have as many as we want, but at the present we are rather thinly clad. We have not gotten our overcoats yet and the last suit of clothes were rather thin- but we would have had our overcoats ere this time had they not gotten spoiled on the road. They have been ordered and sent to us, but were said to have been left in a damp place for several days in a warehouse on the canal and consequently got moulded and spoiled, but we have made another requisition and i expect that we will have them soon. In regard to the blankets. We have all got a good big army blanket that will en- able us to sleep warm and we get as many underclothes as we want all the time, but we have them to pay for,of course, and i have got me a good gum coat that will keep all the rain off and it is a good friend on a rainy night when i am standing guard. the gum coat cost me only $3.00. Now about the girls. You said that they draped in men's clothes and road peoples horses and shaved horses tails and such like tricks. Well i would suggest that if they rode peoples horses to ride them and if they shaved horses tails, you had better shave their tails, and if that won't do, i guess that you had better get along the best you can till i come home and i will raise a company of them and muster them into the nine months service and let them try what they can do for their country. Now this is the best that i can do, and if this fails we will resort to other means. Well i have learned from letters in the last few days that Wesley (Chess) and Lewis (Chess) have gone to enlist in the 12th regt. Well if so i have not much hope of seeing them till our time is out, for the 12th regt. is now at Williamsport away above Harper's Ferry and we are 70 miles below or nearly so and i don't know when we will get together again-but we are in the same brigade yet and under Brigadier General Alexandria and maybe we will be collected together, for i don't know why one man will have his command scattered over the whole state. We are in the first brigade of General Banks column and if one or the other of the regts. are not put into another brigade i hope we will get into the same camp ere long. I would far rather they would not have been so hasty and waited till my order got there and then they could have gotten here without any trouble and been with me. We could have been in the same company and would have had bully times this winter and then we would have gotten our discharge at the same time and come home together, but as it is we are not certain about coming home together- but i have scattered my words so and filled nearly all my papaer and not written anything hardly and so must close and not write any for the boys, but they will write for themselves, i reckon soon, so i will bid you good bye and write a few lines to Mary or some of the rest or another sheet to send along with this as i don't believe in one cent's worth of news for 3 cents. Write soon. R.R. Chess Additional Comments: This old letter brought in from Lawrenceport, Ind. with some old papers going to the junk yard- sold to Harry Mathew and the letter discovered by one of the boys working there March 27,1942 Robert Roberts Chess lived to be an old man William Gasaway inlisted Pvt Co H 67 Indiana-died Feb 23,1863 and is buried in Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lawrence/military/civilwar/letters/chess54nmt.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/infiles/ File size: 5.6 Kb