A request for leave

[CSA Today]

Camp Durgin April 12th 1863
Lt. A. Swain commandind comp.
Sir I wish you to grant me a Furlough for the following reasons first because I have been from home near four months. 2nd i have a wife and five children all being small and the eldest one of them a daughter of thirteen years old and I being a poor man my family is entirely dependent on my labour for the sustenance of life and I being a member of the ms malitia I want to goe home to try to get some person either a man that is over the age of malitia service or under the age of conscript service to plant and cultivate a small corn crop for the comfort and sustenance of my family for next year also my my wife being in a state of vary dellicate health especting to be confined in child bed about the 25 of April she is liveing in a vary remote and thinly settled neighbourhood I wish to goe home to see that she has the necessary attention requisite in such a case her children all being small if you will grant me this favour I pledge myself to be punctual to return to my command where ever it may be at the end of my furlough. J.L. Broom a private in Capt. Fontains comp. (F) 4th Regt. Miss. State

 

[Greg Taylor]

I have to wonder. Did he get his furlough?

 

[Stony]

Wow. War sucks. Probably like that for a lot of soldiers in the civil war.

 

[unionblue]

From the book, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness At Appomattox, by Bruce Catton, chapter 1, Glory is Out of Date, pg. 53-54:

"...There were the age-old attempts to wangle furloughs. An Irish private one day went to his regimental commander, explaining that his wife was ill and the children were not well and that it was necessary for him to make a short visit to his home. The colonel fixed him with a beady eye and said: "Pat, I had a letter from your wife this morning saying she doesn't want you at home; that you raise the devil whenever you are there, and that she hopes I won't grant you any more furloughs. What have you to say to that?"

Quite unabashed, the soldier replied that there were "two splendid liars in this room" and that he himself was only one of them: "I nivir was married in me life."

Unionblue