Camp near Orange
Court House
Va
March 23rd 1862
Dear father
I take my pen in hand
this morning to write you a few
lines in answer to your letter of the
13 inst which I received 2 days ago
these lines leave me and Clinton
enjoying good heatlh I would have
written to you sooner but we have been
moving for the last 2 weeks or more
our Brigade left their winter quar
ters yesterday was 2 weeks ago and
have underwent more hardships
for the same length of time than
at any other time since we have been
in the service our men has lost a
good many of their clothes and
blankits on the march our wagons
could not haul much and the men
had more than they could carry
so they had to throw them away
[page 2]
I do not know the object of the
move we have have evacuated
Centerville and Manassas and moved
toward Richmond about 60 miles
and I think we will go farther
in a few days to a place called
Gordonsville
I never saw such a waste of proper
ty and provisions in my life as I
saw when we started from Man
asses I was detailed the day before
we started to go to the Rail Road
and guard our bagage there
was the bagage of 10 Regiments
there I will say as much as 100
wagons could haul at one time
I staid there with it until 2
weeks ago this morning there was
2 cars sent there after bagage
and I had more men than any
other Regiments so we put ours
on and brought it away safe
and I learn since that ours was
[page 3]
all that was saved of the pile
they could not get the rest of
it away and had to burn it
up right there in a pile
I went on by Mannassas and never
never in all my life did I
see such destruction as ther was
at that place I saw about 500
barrels of flour choped open in
one pile and left lying in the
mud barrels of vinegar whiskey
molasses sugar houses of corn
boxes of goods and tobacco either
spilled on the ground or the
kindling wood fixed to them ready for
the flames I fear that we will
need some of those things yet
before the war is over.
the weather here has been very
moderate for the last 2 weeks
I have not seen any snow in
2 weeks or more except on the
tops of the mountains
[page 4]
my knapsack was at the camp
when they started Clinton put
it in the wagons and the [???] [1]
was so heavy [???] that the
wagon master throwed it
out by the road side so I
lost my clothes and blanket
except what [??] I had on my
back amd 1 pr drawers and i shirt
and [????] that I had in my [box?]
[???] they [??] at Richmond
[???] [???] we had too
much clothing any way and now
[I?] recon we will not be burdend
with [too?] [???][???] [bad?] dis[??]
[???????] of m[???] [???] and [???]
[sone?] and have enough yet
I will come to a close
write soon
C. W. Foust
to David Foust