Who on earth? In a box of my aunt’s belongings, I found a copy of a one page letter written during the Civil War:
Chattanooga, Tennessee, jan. 1st, 1864
Dear Brother I take pen in hand to answer your letter witch come to hands on Christmas and I was glad indeed to here from someone and to here that you was all well I am well at present and I hope that these few lines ma find you all in the same state of health well Brother it will be three weaks nes Sunday since I rote home and I will tell you the reson why I did not rite ofner on the 18th of last month our Regt had to go out in frunt to gard a Bridge on the Chickamauga Creek and we did not take eny paper with ous and so we did not get to rite Enny a while we wose there and we wose not releaved until yesterday morning witch we … [end of letter]
P.S. I got the Huntingdon American News paper of dec 23rd I sane that tha is a Leatter in the paper Advertists fore Leather it is in the Huntingdon Post office
I have no idea “witch” ancestor wrote this letter, but I love it — the vernacular, the phonetic spellings. I have at least one Pennsylvania ancestor who worked for the Confederate Army, but this does not appear to be him. The Union Army suffered a bad defeat at West Chickamauga Creek in September of 1863, but by December 18, if the writer of the letter was guarding a bridge over Chickamauga Creek, he was doing so once the Union Army had regained that ground. Since the writer refers to Huntingdon, my guess is he probably came from that area, somewhere near Johnstown, PA, whence quite a few of my ancestors hail.