96

George F. Edgerton.

Letters of a soldier stationed just outside of occupied New Orleans.

Various places, November 1862 to March 1863
19 Autograph Letters Signed to wife Abby Maria Cooley Edgerton and their sons, some on illustrated letterhead; generally minor wear, some passages underlined in colored pencil. Each letter sleeved with a typed transcript. 

  • Notes: George Frederick Edgerton (1827-1863) was a married carpenter with two children in Norwich, CT  when he enlisted in the 26th Connecticut Infantry. Most of these letters were written while the regiment was stationed at Camp Parapet, just north of New Orleans. 

    On 23 December 1862 he wrote, "I was detailed with 4 other men to . . . work at my trade, making camp chest for the big officers to carry on the field. They are made of solid mahogany and made very nice." He was fascinated by the large population of Black farm workers and refugees near camp: "I wish you could see the Negrow women that have come here. They dress up in flounces and all kinds of rigs and some with hoops on. I tell you, it is fun to see them. There is about 13 hundred here now, and they say there is to be 11,000 here, and what in the world thay are going to do with them, I can't see" (8 January 1863). On 12 January 1863, "Capt. Maynard's companey, through a Negrow, captured a Rebel Lieut and brought him into camp. . . . Now the Negrows have got a chance to le[arn]. I see them with their spelling books, trying to learn there letters, old men and women." 

    On 20 January 1863, he observed: "There was about 500 Negroes came here the other night. . . . They carry everything on there heads and not tuch it." On 23 January: "Thay have got Negrow reg't here, and are forming more as fast as they can." On 26 January: "We bought a corn cake of the Black woman that washes our clothes and it was sour, and I told her so, and tonight she brought me another one and said 'My hart will not let me sleep until I bake another one and bring it up here.'"

    On 10 March 1863, he hints about his fellow soldiers sleeping with the refugees: "I am not fighting for them, but I don't know but some of the men are, for they go and dance with them and hug them and that is not all." In his final letter dated 19 March 1863, he notes that "we have got 4 regtements here now besides the battery boys, and some of them are Black men, but they handle the guns well. They fired there guns today, and they made the shells fly through the air like fun."

    Private Edgerton died in the service at Port Hudson on 22 July 1863.
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