“I have it Verry [sic] Nice Here”

By Bruce Allardice and Wayne Wolf · Originally published March 2020 · p. 29

John Seth Smith (1829–1922) joined Company B, 5th New York Cavalry in August 1862. Promoted to corporal, he was discharged April 25, 1864, due to a gunshot wound to the elbow suffered at the battle of Hagerstown, July 6, 1863. A prewar wagon maker in Steuben County, New York, he wrote numerous wartime letters to his wife Martha (Brown) (d. 1886). When he died a local newspaper claimed he was “the oldest veteran of the Civil War” in the county. In the first of these letters Seth Smith is clerking for the regimental sutler (the Colonel’s brother). The money a sutler can make ($200-300 per month) so dwarfs the pay of an army private ($13 per month) that he hopes to get a discharge and become a sutler on his own account. He complains of drunken officers costing the army many battles. The second letter has him in a Frederick, Md., hospital, attempting to get his discharge from the army. He is still suffering from his Hagerstown wound. The “Col.” mentioned in the letters is Othniel De Forest (1826– 64). In late 1863 Col. De Forest was court martialed for defrauding the government. He allegedly conspired with his brother Benjamin (1821–74) to purchase horses, then sell them to the regiment at inflated prices. He also was charged with selling the regimental sutlership, and earning $50,000 from the sutler’s profits. The colonel was dismissed from the service.1

wished me to come in and work for them. The sutler is the Cols. brother and the Colonel had me detailed the same day I wrote my last letter to you and I have been in to it since. He gives me one dollar per day extra of my government pay and I shall stay as long as DeForest is the man that I am clerking for. He is going to get me mustered out of the service if he can so I can stay with him. If I can get out of the service now I understand the ropes so I can make from $200 to $300 per month in the sutler business. The man that I am working for comes out every other day with goods. He comes on the cars from Alexandria, gets here at 9 o’clock, returns again at half past one and I stay here alone and sell out the goods and sometimes when he comes back I have $200, sometimes more. He has got a great confidence in me and I would not do anything to change his mind. It may turn out to my benefit as to our officers. There is too much drinking for the credit of the army and a great manny [sic] of our defeats are caused by whisky not by the

Col. Othniel De Forest (1826– 64). (Wikimedia commons) Was glad to hear from you and to hear that you are well, you and Charley2 and all the rest. I am well and enjoying good health. I am now in the sutler’s store. They and I am sure you would not do ennything [sic] out of the way or ennything [sic] that I would not have you see me do. Sometimes when I am much exposed to cold and that I take about one gill of liquor if I can get it when it is bought by the soldiers it comes very high, one dollar and a half and I have never bought one gill nor one drop of liquor since I came to Virginia and it cost so much, men here does not give it away when they buy it and I think my present place is sufficient proof of my good behavior so put yourself at ease. I shall come home as good morals as I left. I think I got a letter from Nelt with yours. If I am mustered out I shall go home a short time then come back to the sutler business. It pays about three hundred percent. Kiss little Charley for me. Tell him I sleep with him and Ma every night. Give my love to all. No more at present. Write often as you can for it seems lonely to me if I do not hear from you often. So no more at present. Seth

Rebs alone but by whisky and the Rebs together. You are so afraid I will fall in to those bad practices of officers and soldiers. I tell you the truth manny [sic] times I am disgusted with them and to that extent that I am not much likely to fall into them. In you I have got the greatest confidence in you in the world

U.S. General Hospital Frederick City Feb. 24, 1864

My Dear Wife, I received your letter last evening after I had got undressed for bed. I was glad to hear from you. I do wish you could get something that would stop those bad spells in your stomach. I am glad Ma is getting better. Tell her I should like to see her. O how much I think of home and how I long for the time to come home and be with you again but I shall get my discharge by and by. I am back in the hospital as a patient again, I am well and hearty. My arm is not getting enny [sic] better nor will it till I get my discharge. I am playing my card and it is going as well as I can expect. I haf [sic] to work slow and cautious and I think it will come all right in the end. I have had a talk with the lieut. Commanding co. Invalid Corps to which I have been transferred. He has told me as soon as he gets his business so he can attend to it he is going to send me home and that is what will please me and as you will see by the corse [sic] I have taken I have 2 strings to my bow. One is to get my discharge by way of the Lieutenant and if that should by accident fail as I am a patient in the hospital from the Invalid Corps not fit for duty and not likely to be I shall get my discharge and as the matter stands I have to be careful and not overdo the thing in neither case. I have it verry [sic] nice here, good bed enough to eat and no work to do. They had a great time here the 22nd, Washington’s Birthday, gates open so all could go down town and had a grand march through the streets of the city. At evening had a Ethiopian3 entertainment in Barrack E. This barrack is fitted up on purpose and every few days they have one of those entertainments for the benefits of the Hospital. The performers are all patients here. I am in hopes that I shall get my pay as soon as the 10th of next month and then I won’t let it get cold in my pocket. I will express it to you immediately. I do not think of anything more at present. Give my love to Pa and Ma and to all of the rest. Tell them I shall be very glad to see them. Direct to Barrack N as at first write as soon as you can. It seems so long between your letters. Sometimes I get uneasy. So good day & write soon. Yours affectionately, Seth Endnotes: 1. For more on the 5th New York Cavalry, see Vincent L. Burns, The Fifth New York Cavalry in the Civil War (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 2014). 2. Evidently their son, who died young. 3. Blackface minstrel. Bruce S. Allardice is Professor of History at South Suburban College in Illinois. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago. Wayne L. Wolf is past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable.