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6th West Virginia Cavalryman's Correspondence

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A very rare West Virginia Union soldier's letter group written by Pvt. Jacob F. Matlick, Co. L, 6th West Virginia Cavalry during 1864 with one letter written to his family by a comrade from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1866 (with soldier artwork) while the regiment served on the Plains fighting Indians. The group consists of twelve war-date letters, with one partial, one war-date poem and several postwar tax receipts, an 1865 letter and an undated legal document. The 6th West Virginia served throughout 1864 fighting and rebels troopers and bushwhackers in western Virginia and Maryland until 1865 when they were sent to the Western Plains to fight Indians. Upon reaching Fort Leavenworth part of the regiment mutinied feeling that they should have been discharged at the end of the war. None the less, they remained on the Plains helping guard the Overland mail route and fighting Indians until May 1866 when they were discharged. The correspondence reads, in small part: "…[Martinsburg, Va., March 10, 1864]…we have been running round a good deal since we left home. We left Cranberry Summit on Thursday…and arrived at Grafton…we were quartered in an old block house without any blankets…we staid…till Sunday when we were mustered in and started for Wheeling there we received the first installment of our bounty…we found the regiment encamped on a hill…we saw the 4th Va. at Wheeling…we have just got our horses. Some of them are…good horse but most of them are a hard looking set of crow baits. They have been run to death…there is lots of dead horses lying around camp and in a creek at the bottom of the hill…I have just been out riding my horse…& he is so poor he nearly fell down…[his comrade John F. McGren adds]…our company is not yet organized…there is a good deal of sickness here…there is three or four buried every day. There is 6 or 8 thousand here mostly cavalry. We are looking for an attack…before long…[March 13]…we have the best company of men in the regiment. We have not got any arms yet…some of the boys of the sixth captured a lot of Rebs yesterday while out on picket…we are encamped…overlooking the railroad. There is not a blade of grass on it…except stonewalls and a good many of them are knocked to pieces with cannon balls…if it was not for the white tents dotting the hills…it would be a desolate looking place…today is Sunday but we cannot tell it…some of the men are playing cards, drinking whiskey, singing songs and swearing. The sutler is selling goods…I heard from Cousin Jake Matlick…he is in Richmond jail. He was captured just before crossing the river…we are looking for the rebels to come in and try to run us out…the signal corps was busy last night signaling from one point to another…Capt. Hyde made his appearance as large as life with a sword and shoulder straps…rigged out in gay style…you ought to see us cooking our rations…fancy if you can see one of our mess with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows…tearing around…in a clearing roasting and sweating over a big fire sometimes dropping a handful of meat in the ashes and trying to grab it out with his fingers or spilling the gravy in his boots…I have to write on a small stool about a foot high…with three or four fellows cutting up around me all the time in a tent six feet wide and eight feet long…[March 27]…I have been out on picket for the last five days…there is nothing but rebs out through the country…a man in town murdered his wife by beating her brains out with an axe. He come up to camp…and they arrested him…while out on picket I acme across an old rebel with nine girls and we stopped in and had a chat with them…[Camp Davis near Harpers Ferry, April 21]…we left the great city of Martinsburg on the 15th of this month and came down to Harpers Ferry but the bridge there was broken down and we had to get out of the cars and foot it…the place where we are camped is called Pleasant Valley…about ten miles from the old Antietam battle ground…[Beverly, Randolph Co., West Va., Aug. 1]…there is every effort being made to raise volunteers to fell up the new call. If any feels like enlisting just send them to Co. L. There was five deserters came in the other day. They say that times are hard in Dixie…some of our men brought in a bushwhacker the other day that they caught out on Cheat Mountain…Colonel Thompson of our regiment is dishonorably discharged…Colonel Latham is to command our regiment. Major Lang is to be Lieutenant colonel…[Beverly, Aug. 9]…the old soldiers left here on the 6th for Webster…to be mustered out. We have been looking to be attacked here by the rebels…we have scouts out to watch them and give us word if they approach…there is only about seven hundred men here at present and 400 of them have no arms…Lieut. Watring commands the company and Lieut. Parker is acting adjutant…there is only about 250 of our regiment left here. It is reported that the Second Va. Cavalry will be put in to fill up the regiment…I was…surprised to hear that the militia has been ordered out…I bet it made some of the Copperheads squirm when they found they had to go…[North Branch Bridge near Cumberland, Md., Aug. 25]…we left…Beverly on the morning of the 19th…we reached Phillippi, scene of the first Union victory in West Va…I stopped at Joseph Matlik's …Joe is going to Pittsburg…to enlist again…we are camped…close to the railroad bridge across the north branch of the Potomac. We heard artillery firing in the direction of New Creek this morning…the rebs were in fifteen miles of New Creek and…they were fighting them…the rebs captured a lieutenant and a small squad of men…day before yesterday…[n. p., n. d., but most likely New Creek, late 64]…the Rebs made a dash into Piedmont yesterday…and captured a lot of horses from the citizens…a squad of our boys started in pursuit last night…a dispatch came…that Grant had taken Richmond and that Sheridan had whipped the Rebs and taken a large amount of prisoners and cannon…David Fraker and John Groves…had…seven or eight blank artillery cartridges and had them in their tent…Groves had one of them open and was throwing powder in the fire…the cartridge in his hands took fire and blew up…that set the others off. They were both badly burned about the face and hands…[Pvt. Ellwood Wright, n. p., n. d.]…William Hamon has just come in and he has been guarding the wagon train…there was a New York regiment in our Brigade and they went home this morning…our Colonel brought us some fresh beef just before we started on a march and they did not have time to give it to us and it come in the wagon this morning and it was all spoiled…we went over to a regiment that lays near us and they gave us some fresh beef…[Pvt. John F. McGren, with soldier's art work of painted red, white and blue American flag on the verso, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Feb. 7, 1866]…I still hold my old position in the Hospital…I am a nurse now…all the rest of the boys were well …they expect to come in here in the spring. They are now at Julesburg, Col. Ter. Two of my regiment started home this morning…everything is quiet about the post…there is but few soldiers here now merely enough to do garrison duty but there is about a thousand regulars coming here in the spring to go on the Plains to relieve [the] volunteers…direct to Post Hospital, Ward B… ". Fresh from the family and never offered for sale until now with one transmittal cover also included. Please see following lot on the regiment received Henry rifles. Overall very good.

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