Peleg Bradford
A young soldier, a member of the 18th Maine Volunteers, who got more than he bargained for. Read excerpts from some of his letters below.
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Excerpts from Peleg Bradford’s Letters
9/18/1862
Dear Sister,
… Our living is hard bread and beaf one day and the next is beaf and hard bread, but we go out knits and get peaches and apples, bee hives and young pigs and cabage and bring them in and have a good feast.
10/18/1862
Dear Brother
… We are drilling six hours a day. We have not been cald to fight yet, but we have ben near enough to hear the cannon houl and that is as near as I want to be to a fight, and I guess that is as near as eny of them wants to be. I saw a man that that belonged in the Second Main and he had a musket ball go into his face just under his left eye and come out under his wright ear and I thought that was a pretty hard sight.
3/20/1863
Dear Mother
…You tell father for God sake not to let Owen cum out here for he is to young. You tell him if he knows when he is well off he had better say at home.
4/18/1863
Dear Mother
…We are yet to work on the fort and today we had a nice time fireing bum shels at a target. We have got an old minester here and we have to go and hear him preach every Sunday afternoon. I wish I was at home tomorrow morning so to have a dish of break and mild or a little worm bread and butter. Milk is worth five cents a pint out here and butter is worth thirty-five cents a pound.
You tell Owen that this is no place for little boyes and he had better stay home if he knoes when he is well off.
A complete transcription of Bradford’s letters are on sale in the National Museum of Civil War Medicine’s gift shop.