Letter written by Henry Welch, corporal in the 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company K, to his uncle and aunt from Near Chattahoochee River, Georgia, July 11, 1864

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PAGE IMAGENear Chattahoochee
River (Chattahoochee River)
Georgia (Georgia) July 11th -64 Dear Uncle (Tanner, Franklin) and Aunt (Tanner, Franklin (Mrs., Polly C.)) (Tanner, Polly C. (Mrs. Franklin Tanner))

It was
with great pleasure that I
received a letter from you
last evening, also glad to hear
that things are moving along
as well as usual, we get but
a very few letters this summer
of course we cannot get time
or chance to write many
and it seems that what we
[written in margins: you will see that I have changed my pen]
do write are hardly answered, we
begin to think that the soldiers
are about forgotten by their
old friends. I receive a letter
from you once in about so long
and it does me much good for
I know that you still remember

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PAGE IMAGE your soldier boy. I also get
letter's from home quite often
from Father (Welch, Luther ) Mother (Welch, Luther (Mrs., Phebe)) (Welch, Phebe (Mrs. Luther Welch)) and Brother (Welch, John)
and once in awhile (a while) from the little
girls. Oh how I would like to
see you all once more, to
have a good visit with you, but
I have only thirteen months
more from today to serve and
then if alive I will try and
make you a visit. we are now
in camp for a few day's but
probably we shall not stay long.
we have seen some hard times
since we have been on this campaign
we have done much hard
fighting and hard marching, two
men have been shot that stood
beside me in the ranks one of
them has since died of his wound
so you see that I have been
where the balls flew pretty
thick but I have escaped so

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PAGE IMAGE far and have only been
grazed once but I have
had some pretty close calls.
we do not hear any news
lately from Verginia (Virginia), but we
are in hopes that thing (things) are
progressing well there, the
weather is very warm here
now when we march a short
distance only a good many men
are struck down by the heat
it is awful warm. I suppose
the young folks had a gay
time up there the fourth of July, I hope so, I will tell
you how I spent the fourth
I was on picket the most of
the day myself and two others
lay behind a pile of fence
rails, the rebs were about
fifty rods from us behind
rail piles too, every time a
head was shown on either

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PAGE IMAGE there was three or four shots
fired at it we must have
shot some of them and the (they)
shot one man behind our
rail pile, in the afternoon
our cannon opened fire on
them, and the way the rails
flew and the rebs run
was a caution to all grey
jackets, I think they did not
like that kind of shooting
as well as they did our muskets
I hope the next fourth I shall
have a chance to spend it with
you, we are all confident that
this summer will close the
war, I do not think of anything
more to write so I will close
trusting that God will soon
permit me to meet you up
there where I spent so many pleasant
hours, my love to all good bye

from your
affectionate Nephew Henry Welch (Welch, Henry)