Letter from Gooch , Charles W.

Soldier: Gooch , Charles W.
Allegiance: Union
Unit/Service Branch: 27th Infantry
Home State: Maine
Date Written: Sunday, March 22nd, 1863
Location: Virginia
Correspondence Type: Letter
Subjects: Camp Life, Comrades, Eastern Theater, On the March, Patriotism, Wife/Girlfriend
 
On picket line 4 miles from Camp Genl Casey, Virginia

My Dear Wife,

In my last I wrote that I was going on picket and did not think I should have a chance to write today but when today came I thought perhaps you might not get my last in due time and not know that I was out today and feel uneasy about me so I have procured stationary so I can inform you that I am well and hope you enjoy the same blessings. You may want to know how I can mail it. There is one of the boys going in to camp in the morning and I can send it in by him. My post this time is about 1/4 of a mile above Telegraph Road and extends to the old Fairfax Road distance about one mile. Yesterday it snowed here about all day but today the wind is west and it is almost as warm as summer. It makes me think I wish I could be with you these pleasant Sundays and stormy nights and in fact all the time.

Isaac and I went over to Washington last Thursday and came back Friday. He wanted to get his instrument repaired and had to stop over night to get it. He wanted me to go and so I went. We had to get passes to Alexandria and there get them countersigned by the Provo Marshal so we did not get in Washington til noon. We went from Alexandria in a steamboat about five miles distance. We went into the Smithsonian Institute. There is things from every part of the world; birds, beasts, snakes, eggs, minerals of all discription in the known world, skeletons of man and everything, ice mummies. Three is a ladle of lava dipped up from one of the volcanoes and cooled just as it was dipped up. There is a piece of mineral that fell from one of the stars. It ismostly iron but not all. I should thought by the looks of it that it would weigh about 150 lbs but it did weigh between 4 and 5 hundred. There was a card on it marked the weight and where it came from and said that many such bodies as that revolved around the sun and come in contact with each other sometimes and broke to pieces and many pieces had fallen to earth. It seemed strange to me but bigger men than me say it is so. All the trophies from Japan and other foreign countries were there. From there we went to the Patent Office. There is all the patents there that has been invented since this was a nation but the things that were most interesting to me was Washington's things that he had in the Revelution. There was his tent he slept in and the poles belonging to it. The cloth of it looked like an old table cloth but I should been very glad to get a piece of it but it was in a glass case and I could not. There was the suit of clothes that he wore when he resigned his commission at Anapolis, his war sword was there and all his plates which was peuter, tea pot, water urn, knives and forks and in fact all his things he used during the revelution was there. Old General Jackson's dress coat that he wore at the battle of New Orleans was there and a full tea set that Lafayette gave Washington's wife and looking glass and other things too numerous to mention but I could not enjoy it as perhaps you think I might. One was wanting and you know who that one was my dear wife and I felt glad when night came. We went to a public house and slept all night and got up in morning and went down to the capital and looked around that part of the forenoon. I could not see that it was any nearer done than it was five months ago yet many men had been employed on it ever since then. We started for camp again on the Virginia shore where we arrived safe being the first time I have left the regiment since we left Portland except on duty but Mt. Vernon which I have told you of before.

Now I have filled up my sheet with matters that I do not know will interest you but you must excuse. So hopeing to see my heart's desire, I close. From your most true and devoted husband,

C W Gooch