John Steward                                                           January 3rd 1864 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

Dear Mary,

We lost a lot of good men last week. The battle of Chikamauga. Thousands of bodies on the battlefield. All for nothing. We lost the battle anyway. When those families hear that they have lost their loved ones, do you think they’ll give a damn that they died for their country? No! All that matters to them is that they won’t even see their loved one ever again. I was one of the lucky ones who wasn’t killed or injured, but should I even be happy about that? I’m just surviving battle after battle only to probably die in one eventually. We went to Tennessee knowing that we might not come back, and I’ll keep doing it because I got no other option!

It has been only a week since I returned from the Battle of Chickamauga and we are already snowed in. I haven’t seen the sun in 3 days. I can’t play ball, I can’t even send this letter, so you’ll probably get in in a month or two. Jimmy, Steve, and Robert are in bed sick and they can’t even go to the infirmary. All I’ve been doing is playing cards with the boys who aren’t coughin’ up a storm. We can’t even shuffle the deck properly though because our hands are freezing. Each day we take turns shoveling out the snow to try to clear out the doorway but it seems useless since every morning when we wake up there seems to be more snow than there was before we did anything. Life is hell right now. 

All this to say that I hate that we’re at war. Why can’t we just work it out peacefully. There would be a lot less blood and a lot less suffering. Not to mention they’re getting innocent citizens involved for no reason! I don’t want anything to do with this war, but I got drafted. It’s cowardly to send out lives that they think are valueless to fight their battles for them. I want to see you and our children again so bad, please pray to God for me that this war will end soon so I can go home to my beautiful family.

Love,

John