Collection of Eight Manuscript Letters Signed from Union Soldier G. A. Empie

Item Details

Maryland and Pennsylvania, Unpublished, 1864-65, Letters

Very Good

Of particular interest in these letters are the two annotated pencil sketches made of Empie's impression of the layout of the "Chestnut Hill Hospital." along with a more detailed written description mentioning the barracks, pleasure yard, cabinet shop, church, store, commissary, doctors' offices, barber shop, book room, post office and dining room. It appears that each ward had a bathroom with a stove, a wash room with a stove and a back house with a stove.

A collection of eight manuscript letters, a total of eleven leaves, six having their original envelopes. Two are written on U.S. Christian Commission letterhead paper. A type written transcript of each letter is included. The first letter is dated March 6, 1864 with his whereabouts given as the Provost Marshall Office, Philadelphia telling his wife that he will "start for my regiment this afternoon" The next letters are dated from January to March of 1865, the first five from Jarvis U.S. General Hospital on the outskirts of Baltimore, Md. and the last two from 'Chestnut" Hospital (Mower General Hospital) Philadelphia, Pa. 

All the letters are addressed to his wife, Emma, and his three daughters in the hamlet of Argusville, Schoharie County, New York. In them he describes his gradual recovery from being "yellow all over my whole body". Likely jaundice as a result of viral hepatitis A. Having not received his pay for several weeks, lack of money for his family and increasingly for himself is a recurrent theme in the letters. He is also concerned as to his family's accommodation arrangements and that he has only received one letter from his wife. He also writes that his regiment is stationed at Savannah for garrison duty and that he thinks he may be sent there when he is well enough. In the final letter he tells of "one fellow got $200 paid to him...he went and paid $50 for a fine suit of clothes and then he went to a house...where there are fancy girls and they shed him of the other $150"