American Historical Ephemera & Early Photography Online

2 pages, 8 x 12 1/4 in., heavily creased along folds, with several separations at crease intersections and edges, few ink smears.

In this civilian's letter to her friend, "Nate," Hattie writes about her own health and ability to work before turning to her friend's well-being, writing:

"But when you wrote that you had been on guard forty eight hours; I thought that that was rather hard to be obliged to do duty that long; I thought then that I should not like to work for Uncle Sam very well; They have sent a good many of their drafted Soldiers back and I am afraid that they will draft again before long; But hope not. I hope that this awful war will soon be brought to a final close."

She writes of another soldier, Martin Cleveland, who came home and reported that many soldiers have run away. Hattie seems unsure of whether or not Martin himself was a runaway, but she reports that "he says he shall not go back until he gets ready..."

Hattie then writes about "thrashers" who have been working for multiple people in the town, and then about an apple cut that she attended the other night. She also mentions an exhibition to Mansfield.

Nathan H. Wilcox enlisted as a private on 15 August 1862 and mustered into Company A of the 149th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment the same day. He was killed on 1 July 1863 at Gettysburg, just 8 months after this letter from his friend was penned.

The 149th was a bucktail regiment, recruited primarily from the counties of Potter, Tioga (where Covington is located), Lycoming, Clearfield, Clarion, Lebanon, Allegheny, Luzerne, Mifflin, and Huntingdon. It engaged at Chancellorsville as part of Stone's Brigade, Doubleday's Division, and Reynolds' Corps, Army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg, it went into position on the ridge in front of the seminary, near the Chambersburg pike and maintained this position throughout the first day, experiencing heavy fighting and sustaining many losses in that pursuit. It is this day that Wilcox lost his life.