Letter from physician to widow

[NH Civil War Gal]

1863: James V. Patterson to Louisa (Mansfield) Palmer

George W. Palmer (1838-1863) was a 23 year-old barber of Lynnfield, Essex county, Massachusetts, when he enlisted in the fall of 1861 as a private in Co. A, 19th Massachusetts Infantry. He was slig…

sparedshared23.com

Please read these three letters from a doctor to the wife of George Palmer of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry.

George is in a smallpox hospital, thought he survives Antietam. I have never, ever seen such compassion or personal concern and thoroughness shown from a physician during the Civil War to a widow.

 

[Salterr]

1863: James V. Patterson to Louisa (Mansfield) Palmer

George W. Palmer (1838-1863) was a 23 year-old barber of Lynnfield, Essex county, Massachusetts, when he enlisted in the fall of 1861 as a private in Co. A, 19th Massachusetts Infantry. He was slig…

sparedshared23.com

Please read these three letters from a doctor to the wife of George Palmer of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry.

George is in a smallpox hospital, thought he survives Antietam. I have never, ever seen such compassion or personal concern and thoroughness shown from a physician during the Civil War to a widow.

Will Griffing is amazing when it comes to transcribing letters. He's able to do it so fast too. I gave him my letters and it was probably two days before he had them all posted.

 

[lupaglupa]

George W. Palmer enlisted August 20, 1861 at Lynnfield, Massachusetts (north of Boston). The regimental descriptive book does says he died of smallpox. George married Louisa Mansfield in 1858. Carrie was born four months later. Louisa married again in 1879.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Will Griffing is amazing when it comes to transcribing letters. He's able to do it so fast too. I gave him my letters and it was probably two days before he had them all posted.

He helped me with one and did it in *minutes*! I don't know how he does it so fast!

 

[Salterr]

He helped me with one and did it in *minutes*! I don't know how he does it so fast!

I don't know either, meanwhile I'm flipping it upside down and sideways trying to figure it out for days!

 

[Fairfield]

So many of the letters written back to the family of a deceased soldier--both by the officer who had that sad responsibility and by comrades of the deceased--are so very touching. They must have been a source of comfort. It is remarkable that, with all that was going on soldiers found the time.

In my own family, it was the letters written home to Norway that fill in gaps of official records.

 

[Story]

"Islington Lane" was a name unfamiliar to me, so off I went. According to one composite source, it had only 60 beds.

For those who need footnotes -
Specification of workmanship and materials necessary for the erection of a hospital and picket fence at Camp Cadwalader, on Islington Lane, Philadelphia, for the accommodation of U.S. soldiers.

Specification of workmanship and materials necessary for the erection of a hospital and picket fence at Camp Cadwalader, on Islington Lane, Philadelphia, for the accommodation of U.S. soldiers.

Digitized content from the collections of Cornell University Library

digital.library.cornell.edu

The necessity for a permanent point of assemblage within the city, properly barracked and enclosed, where recruits might be housed and regiments formed, resulted in Camp Cadwalder. This camp was the most important military rendezvous in the city. It consisted of an extensive group of barracks and other buildings enclosed by a high fence and was located upon Islington Lane, east of Ridge Road. It faced the line of Twenty-second Street, the rear being toward Twentieth Street and the south side toward the German Hospital at Twentieth and Norris Streets.

Camp Cadwalader, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Camp Cadwalader in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the final Union Army service location for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. It was here, on 9 January 1866, that 47th Pennsylvania Voluntee…

47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com