CIVIL WAR LETTER - 84th Pennsylvania Infantry, Describes Fight at Hancock, MD !

Description

CIVIL WAR LETTER
Civil War Letter by Soldier in Co. I, 84th Pennsylvania Infantry
This Civil War soldier letter was written by 27 year-old Jackson Potter (1834-1862), the son of John Potter (1807-1880) and Mary Rishel (1813-1879) of Luthersburg, Clearfield county, Pennsylvania. Jackson enlisted on 1 October 1861 in
Co. I, 84th Pennsylvania Infantry
and he died on 11 July 1862 at Alexandria, Virginia.
Most of the letters were written to his father, or his sister, Jane Potter (1839-1905), and a few to other family members such as his brother, William Marion Potter (1842-1916).
Of Potter’s service, his commanding officer wrote, “the company joins with me in [conveying to you, his father,] that they have lost a true soldier and a pleasant companion.”
Transcription
Camp Kelley
January 20th 1862
Dear Sister Jane,
It is with pleasure that I take my pen to write you a few lines to let you know that I am well hoping that you’re the same. I received a letter from you on the 5th when I was in Hancock. It was on Sunday and I was in the ranks for the fight on the 4th. We had a fight across the river in Virginia seven miles. We left Hancock on the 3rd at night and the next morning we formed line for battle. At about twelve o’clock, firing commenced and we scattered them like every thing for several hours and then we had to retreat for they [had] ten or twelve thousand and we was but 9 hundred strong. And we run [a] very narrow escape for they had got us surrounded and when we got back to the river, they had us headed and their batteries planted.
I was on a scout in front of the regiment when their pickets and cavalry fired on us, but as good luck would have it, our cavalry had crossed the river [and] came to our assistance and some scattered them, killing fifteen. And our artillery soon drawed their attention from firing at us and it gave us time to cross the river without throwing many shells at us.
After we got across the [river] into Hancock, they kept firing part of the night in the town. On the next morning is when I got your letter and that day and the next firing was kept up. We had none killed but we had one drowned.
1
But they had about one hundred and fifty killed on the 10th.
After dark we started for Cumberland—[a] forty miles march. Little Ike Lines made the march in less than twenty-four hours with his knapsack and gun, haversack, and canteen. We stayed in Cumberland till the sixteenth and then we marched six miles to Camp Kelley. They say there is about seventy-five thousand in this division, I do not know what movement we will have for we have three days rations in our haversacks now and I expect to see a fight before you will get this letter.
I want you to write immediately and I want you all to write to me. Tell the girls the next time I want you to write whether you got all of my clothes and I want you to open them. My boots was sent in the box. Nothing more at present. Your brother, — Jackson Potter
Direct your letters to Jackson Potter, Camp Kelley, Maryland, in care of Capt. [Joseph] Curby, 84th Regt., P. V., Company I.
to Jane Potter
1
The soldier that drowned was Theodore Pardee of Co. I, 84th Pennsylvania.
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