January 31, 1862

By January 31st 2012

 Headquarters Third Brigade, 
 McCall’s Division,
Camp Pierpont,
January 31, 1862

Dear Father:-

                Yours and Bingham’s were received last Monday evening. They found me well as usual. Nothing of importance has transpired since I wrote you last.
                Last Tuesday I paid a visit to Alexandria and the 105th Regt., Pa. Vols., Col. McKnight, of Brookville. This is the regiment in which the Richland boys are and the one in which Harvey Jolly was. He has been detailed out of the regiment for the signal service and is now somewhere in the vicinity of Washington, but I do not know where. All the rest of the Venango boys in that regiment are well and look as though they ate their rations. Rev. Steadman is the Chaplain of this regiment and I stayed with him while there and had a very agreeable  visit. I took breakfast with him at the tent of the Quartermaster in the morning and at noon the Quartermaster’s lady asked him whether that other Chaplain who was there in the morning would be over with him for dinner. That is the second time in my life I’ve been taken for a Minister. Steadman laughed a good deal over the joke. He sends his kindest regards to you, Ma, and all the children.
                The Capt. Brady who enlisted all the Richland boys was only a self-styled Captain and after he got into the service became a Second Lieutenant. Not being an efficient officer, he was ordered before the Board of Examination and, knowing he could not stand the test, has resigned and gone home.
                The roads here in Virginia are perfectly “awful.” If some of the croakers in the North who are grumbling about a forward movement of the Army of the Potomac were here, they would not have anything more to say for a few weeks. The soldiers of the Army are disgusted with the ranting of the Greeley school of Abolitionists who are crying, ”On to Richmond.”[1]
                I have not heard anything from John, Sam, or David Jolly since I have been in the army. Where are they?
                I imagine I hear little Mary talk of “skipping over two or three fences,” with her customary “why,” “why,” etc. I would love dearly to see the little thing as also all the rest.[2] I often dream about you all. Last night I dreamed of Ma, but it was an awful dream. I thought she had lost her reason and become a raving maniac. I was in deep trouble until I woke and “behold it was all a dream.”
                I am devoting all my spare time now to the study of tactics, Light Infantry or Rifle Drill. I may need knowledge of this before I get out of the army.[3]
                I guess Col. McCalmont will not leave the 10th Regt. at present but has withdrawn his resignation.
                Mary Stanton wrote me the particulars of Maria G’s marriage—a slight variation from the prophecy of Holy Writ where it says the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, etc.
                I will not write to Bing this week as I have not time, but I am much obliged to him for writing to  me and hope he will do so soon again.
                My love to all the family.          Yours affectionately, James 

Next posting: February 14, 2012

Jonathan E. Helmreich
College Historian
Allegheny College
Meadville,  PA 16335                           

[1] Horace Greeley as editor of the New York Tribune was an outspoken opponent of slavery and, at this point in the war, actively goading the administration to attack the Confederate capital.

[2] Mary was James’s littlest sister, aged five at the time of his enlistment.

[3] Chadwick apparently was studying tactics and drill in the event he might be invited to stand examination for promotion. Levi Bird Duff, who knew Chadwick well, wrote on February 1, 1862, that he had recently talked with Chadwick, who told Duff that “Col. McKnight [of the 105th Pennsylvania Volunteers] had requested him to visit the regt. With a view to a commission but when the Col. asked him to undergo an examination he declined fearing that he might fail to come up to the Col.’s standard.”—Levi Bird Duff, To Petersburg with the Army of the Potomac:The Civil War Letters of Levi Bird Duff, 105th Pennsylvania Volunteers,  36. As Duff was then being examined for a captaincy by McKnight, Chadwick’s lack of readiness for examination apparently opened the door for promotion for Duff.