John W. Pitridge, 5th Vermont Volunteers, Civil War Correspondence Incl. Descriptions of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville

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• Lot Description

  Lot of 76 war-date letters, most with original covers, spanning October 26, 1861, through April 18, 1865. Majority of letters written by Union Private John W. Pitridge (1842-1925) to his family. Outstanding content – colorful, evocative, detailed, and always genuine - from a soldier who served nearly the entirety of the Civil War in a regiment which engaged in multiple critical Union Army Campaigns.

  John W. Pitridge enlisted on September 4, 1861, as a Private then on September 16, 1861, mustered with “H” Company 5^th Regiment of the Vermont Volunteer Infantry for three years service. He re-enlisted on December 15, 1863, and ultimately mustered out on June 29, 1865. During the course of his enlistment he was seriously wounded and taken prisoner enduring a brief confinement as a POW. Pitridge witnessed many of the major battles of the war, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Spotsylvania. His regiment bears the undesirable distinction of being one of just forty-five infantry regiments out of the entire Union Army that suffered losses of more than 200 men killed or mortally wounded during the course of the conflict.

  Little information can be ascertained about the early years of John Pitridge’s life beyond the fact that his father died while he was still young. His mother, Hannah Reynolds Pitridge remarried Jarvis Phelps of Vermont and went on to have three more children, Charles, Franklin, and Amanda – often referred to affectionately in Pitridge’s letters as “Charley,” “Frank,” and “Mandy.” The family was raised in Rutland County, Vermont, and Pitridge’s letters home seem to indicate a close-knit, loving family.

  Pitridge’s early letters reflect the initial excitement often exhibited by young soldiers, as on November 8, 1861, when he writes to his mother from Camp Griffin in Virginia shortly after enlistment: “I woodent come home for to dolars for hear is the plase for me For I can see 12 Bras Bands Every day and 8 or 10 thousand men to hear guns and cannons to Every day to. And who woodent Bea a Soldier…?”  While at Camp Griffin, Pitridge’s regiment participated “in one of the most splended sights that you ever will see in your life,” the Grand Review of the troops by General McClellan, President Lincoln, Secretary of War Simon Cameron, and “all the other great men of the United States of America.”  After wintering at Camp Griffin, the 5^th Vermont headed to Fort Monroe in the spring of 1862 to participate in the Peninsular Campaign. It was during this Campaign that Pitridge finally began to engage in combat operations.

  On June 29, 1862, John Pitridge’s parents sent him a letter detailing news from home, meanwhile that same day their son was fighting for his life on one of the deadliest days of his enlistment. The Battle of Savage’s Station was the fourth of the Seven Days Battles in which Union forces led by McClellan were forced to retreat ending the Peninsular Campaign. Both sides suffered large numbers of casualties at Savage’s Station, but Pitridge’s regiment, part of the famed “Vermont Brigade,” suffered a particularly brutal cost. The 5^th Vermont Regiment suffered the greatest loss, killed and wounded, of any Vermont regiment in any one engagement and lost nearly half of its men. Pitridge himself took a bullet, and for a time his fate remained unknown to his family and even to those with whom he served. On July 4^th, 1862, Pitridge’s friend Seth Partlow wrote to Jarvis and Hannah Phelps: “I write in the plase of your Son John W Pitridge and with his request – Last Sunday nite June 30^th [incorrect date] we had a fight with the enemy and drove them back with a great loss on both sides…. Johney was shot through the left Brest – he stood besid me when he fell but with the help of Some Body got off the field 10 rods. After the order Retreat came and we left the field I went back to where Joney lay and found a live. He asked ho it was. I told him ho it was and he wanted my hand. I gave it to him. And he said Oh Seth I have got to die and he says you knoe me and my folks and write to them. Tell them I died in a glorious Caus. Tell them I did not run but faced the enemy until I fell. Our Army retreating and the enemy close by us, His hands were Cold. I think he must have died shortly…. Our dead and wounded was left.”

  Seth Parlow assumed that John Pitridge had died on the field of battle, however, he was wrong. Like many of the wounded who were left behind during the Union retreat, Pitridge was taken by the Confederates and sent to the infamous Libby Prison at Richmond. In a brief, undated letter written from Libby Prison, Pitridge writes to his family “I am now a prisner and Wounded to. But am doing well and for Well have enough to eat and to dreenk. It wount do for you to right to me for they wont com to me. So good by for this time.” It appears that Pitridge’s stay in prison was short-lived though, because in a letter to Pitridge’s family dated July 19^th, 1862, Vermont soldier James R. McGibbon writes that “It is with much Joy that I write to you to let you know that I have heard from John. He is alive and doing well…. Our own doctor has just come and John is on the lot about 1 mile from here…. His wound is not as bad as we thought it was.”  Though it is unclear exactly how and when it occurred, Pitridge is likely to have been a part of a prisoner exchange which secured his release and enabled him to return to a Union hospital. By August 19^th, Pitridge is able to write from a hospital in Point Lookout, Maryland, and assure his mother that he is alive and well.

  In the months that follow, Pitridge tries to maintain an upbeat tone, often starting his letters with the phrase “’Tis with great pleasure that I write to let you know that I am well.” Yet as the war rages on, his letters home also exhibit more sadness, loss, and a devastating bitterness. In a letter dated December 6, 1862, Pitridge angrily remarks upon the northern cowards who avoid service in the war, “You northern hipercrits taking your comfort, no danger to fase and no Rebbels to fase nor chase eather…. All that I wish is to see sum of them down hear to sleep in the mud up to ther ass or see them In hell with her back broke or some other plase. Sumtimes I wish that the holl of the north wood seank to the loar pits of hell never to rise again. They all say that I have don my part but there aint on of them hoo wood jest com and take my part and let me com home. No they are dam cowards and at home is the plase for them.”  On December 30^th of that same year he shares what he has come to believe is the real reason for the war, “But one thing is sirten the dam war is nothing but the works of some dam Big Bugs in the North and South too. All it is is for is to kill off a few men so there could be a few more big storys to be published and give some men a large Name. But Jefferson Davis will have the best name of them all for he will Lick us all to hell as shure as hell….” It is clear that after a little more than one year in the army Pitridge’s earlier excitement about the war has dissolved. Even more, his declarations that he would not wish to come home have been supplanted by a surreptitious effort to make himself sick. Multiple letters from Pitridge feature entreaties written to his parents asking for them to get something from their family doctor that will “make me poor and look bad so I can get of to the General Hospital and then I can get a furlow if I can’t get my discharge.” Pitridge warns his parents to “be sly about it to.”

  Despite his efforts to return home, Pitridge remained in the field participating in some of the most deadly engagements of the Civil War. Still attached to the Army of the Potomac, Pitridge’s regiment participated in the Chancellorsville Campaign. On May 11, 1863, Pitridge writes to his “Dear Father & Mother Sisters Brothers” that he has ”Ben saved thrue one more Batel and a hard on to as ever I See Sence I left home and Hope I never Shall See another on as long as I stay in the armey.” The battle Pitridge refers to is the 2^nd Battle of Fredericksburg. “Well we took the Hights at the left of fredericksburg our Bregad and hell them To and took 3 Peases of artillery to But it Was hot fiering….And so you See they Surrounded us All most and We had to fight Lik hell to keep from Being taking Prisners and our Bregad took about 13 hundred Prisners and lot of officers to…I never see the Balls fly so fast in my Life.” Pitridge is characteristically honest both in his description of battle as well as in his description of a soldier’s thoughts during combat. “But one thing I Would Say that When he goes into A fight he don’t care for nothing. When he smells the Powder and hear the crack of muskets and hte Whising of Balls and the Groans of the dying And when he sees his comrades fall by Hi Side it only makes him Mad and he will fight for the harder to seak revenge for his dead Companion hoo has falin By his Side for the caus of his contry. But to see the trator fall it is his delight chears of good tidings Will go up and the Wourd Will be See the trator fall.”

  After Chancellorsville, the 5^th Vermont moved on to participate in the Gettysburg Campaign. Pitridge shares his stories of endless marching, constant shelling, and the carnage that he witnessed on the battlefield at Gettysburg. On July 17, 1863, he writes from Camp in Maryland, that “On the 4 day of Juli I went over the Batel field or part of it for it smelt so bad that I couldent stand it our men had picked up our dead and bured them but the rebels lay ther and sech a sight I never Bfore saw in my life They lay thicker than the stones in your garden on Plas Where they charged on one of our bartreys a spot of ground not 20 rods square lay 119 dead men for I counted them That is gods truth and good god don’t think that was all for the ground covered for moilels all around Such a Sight No human Eye never Behold….”

  After the Battle of Gettysburg, the 5^th Regiment was detached from the army for service in New York City during the draft riots. Following this the regiment was advanced to the line at Rappahannock. On December 15, 1863, John Pitridge and many in his regiment reenlisted, and went on to receive a Veteran Furlough. In March 1864, John is taken ill with an abscess under his arm. His friend and fellow soldier James McGibbon writes several letters updating the Phelps family on his health because John is unable to write. By the end of the month, however, John is once again able to correspond with his family. He has survived the Battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse, though many of his friends were not so lucky. “But this war can’t last always,” he writes on May 19^th, 1864, “for there won’t be men left to carry it on.”

  Like most soldiers’ letters, Pitridge shares his war stories but also writes longingly of home. He inquires as to the health of friends and family and the wellbeing of his farm animals; he writes of his desire to purchase a home and talks about his pay and bounty; he implores his family members to stay out of the service; he shares news of the local boys with whom he serves and sends messages for his family to share with their neighbors. He seems to harbor particular affection for his little sister Mandy. At one point when she is taken ill, Pitridge pleads with his mother and father to “take good care of hur and jest as long as there is on sent of money in the house Don’t let hur Sufer for on Single thing for it Wood cos me mor pain than I could stand….”  Pitridge also writes about his search for a wife, and the women from his town who are under his consideration for matrimony. He writes in June 1864 that one woman, Mary Jane Comstock, “is the onley girl that I Ever thought Enough to mary and if I hadent Ben a fool I should jest Ben mared To her….”

  In the last year of Pitridge’s enlistment, he would continue to participate in major engagements. His regiment was part of the Siege of Petersburg, Fisher’s Hill, and the Third Battle of Winchester. Pitridge writes of loneliness as his fellow soldiers die and the pain of seeing his own men hung for desertion. Yet after three years in the army, in December of 1864 John Pitridge finally feels like the war may be drawing to a real end. On Christmas Day he tells his family that “I do think By Next year at this time this Bad war will be over for Every Thing looks so to me….” Pitridge was correct. On April 2, 1865, the 5^th Vermont was the first regiment to plant its colors on the Confederate defensive works at the Fall of Petersburg, and the regiment was present for Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Following Appomattox, John Pitridge and the 5^th Vermont would eventually march to Washington, DC, and be mustered out of the army on June 29, 1865, at Munson’s Hill, Virginia.

  Upon return home to Vermont, John Pitridge would marry Miss Mary Jane Comstock (1847-1929). Their marriage certificate dated September 16, 1865, is included with this archive as is the blue bowtie he wore at their wedding and a tintype photo of John and Mary Jane. They had two children, Etta and Vernon. John made his living as a sawyer and a farmer, and served as a member of the Vermont State House of Representatives from Leicester in 1910. He lived out the remainder of his days in Vermont.

  Letters are sometimes written on patriotic stationery; they are generally easily legible and are in very good condition. Letters are organized neatly in a large binder with two sets of accompanying transcriptions, one with spelling as written and one with spelling corrected for ease of reading. A partial index of the collection is also included with the letters, however, it should be noted that some letters in the index are not a part of this collection and some letters included in the collection are not listed in the index. Similarly, the binder includes transcriptions of letters which are not included in this archive.

  Overall, this is a marvelous collection offering a vivid and complex portrait of a soldier who wanted to fulfill his duty, yet was increasingly disillusioned by the terrible toll of the war. 

  Condition

  Good condition.

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