CIVIL WAR LETTER - 9th Vermont Infantry, Drummer Boy Fires Salutes LEE SURRENDER

Description

Civil War Letter
Civil War Letter - Written by the Drummer Boy of
Co. K, 9th Vermont Infantry.
This remarkable Civil War letter was written by
Pvt. Fordyce A. Peck
(1848-1866), the drummer boy of
Co. K, 9th Vermont Infantry.
Fordyce (Fordice) was the son of Elihu P. Peck (1809-1874_ and Jane A. Scott (1814-1890) of Monkton, Addison county, Vermont. He wrote the letter to his older brother, Egbert Abel Peck (1843-1914).
The 9th Vermont was organized at Brattleboro and mustered in July 9, 1862. They were part of the Union garrison at Harper’s Ferry surrendered on 15 September to Stonewall Jackson’s men and they spent the next six months guarding rebel prisoners at Chicago. After they were exchanged, they were sent to Suffolk and various other places in Virginia and North Carolina before joining Butler’s men at Bermuda Hundred in the siege of Petersburg.
Fordyce did not enlist until 26 December 1863. In this letter we learn that he had fallen ill with fever and was sent to Point of Rocks Hospital and was still there at the time of Lee’s surrender on 9 April 1865. According to his military record, Fordyce was transferred to Com C. on 13 June 1865 and discharged for disability on 11 October 1865. Yes, he survived the war, but he died at Monkton, Vermont, on 14 July 1866 and was buried in Carter Cemetery. His headstone gives his date at death as 18 years & 11 months.
Union drummer boys, Library of Congress
TRANSCRIPTION
Point of Rocks Hospital
April 10, 1865
Dear Brother and all,
How do you all today. Hope you are all well. As for myself, I feel a good deal better than I did yesterday. We are a bravoing such good news that it makes me feel a good deal better. Old Lee has surrendered his army and navy. They began to fire a salute and cheering at dark last night and they kept it up until most morning and then this morning they began again at 10 and kept it going until today noon. I tell you, it is some different now to what it was 3 weeks ago. Then there was not nothing but a waste of rebs.
I have just got a letter from Mother again. You had just heard that I was sick. I thought that you had heard of it before. I don’t see what makes my letters so long a going. I always put them or send the to the office as quick as I get them wrote. The doctor said that I was threatened severely with a very hard fever. I had two of them to once. He called it lung fever and a little touch of typhoid fever at the last and I had about half a run of it. The letter that I got from Mother today was wrote the same day that our folks went into Richmond.
How much maple syrup did you get this spring? I wish I had some. I hope that I shall be to home next spring to get some, don’t you? It is a raining today. We have got lots of wounded and sick rebels in this hospital. They was taken prisoners at Petersburg when we took the place.
I sent a letter to Mother yesterday and got a paper from Spencer yesterday too. Write soon. So goodbye from your brother, — Fordyce A. Peck
Excuse bad writing. My hand trembles.
Point of Rocks Hospital, Va.
TERMS
.00 postage in the United States.  We accept Paypal.
Postage combined for multiple purchases.  Please wait for me to send the invoice, otherwise you will pay a higher rate.
For International buyers, we utilize eBay’s Global Shipping Program.  We had too many packages sent via the post office go missing.  So we believe this program will be safer for us and for you.
We are members of the American Philatelic Society, the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, the Confederate Stamp Alliance and the Illinois Postal History Society.
We only sell genuine, original letters (no copies or reproductions).  Some of our letters have been transcribed and nicely presented for future genealogists and history buffs on the Spared & Shared blog.
We have been selling on eBay since 1998.   BID WITH CONFIDENCE !