Editor’s Note: This article was transcribed by Brett Schulte.
To the Editor of the Examiner:
As you are the most earnest in advocating the rights of a soldier, will you please be kind enough to give a place in your columns for a serious complaint. It concerns the Postoffice, and I wish some one would explain an answer to this note.
1st. Why is it that the letters of a soldier are so often not received by those to whom they are sent?
2d. Why is it that a letter franked is sure to reach its destination, while one with a stamp on the back never hardly is received?
3d. Why is not a private soldier’s letter of as much importance as any citizens. Is it, because he is so likely to be killed in battle, and it will not be known that he wrote the letter?
4th, and lastly. Who will remedy this evil, or who can; will not some take pity on us, and see that our little missives are done justice with?
I would not trouble you with this, but you know as well as I do that a soldier’s life is tedious at best. But imagine a person not receiving a letter, though having written ten, for three months or more; yet I have not received any, but I received a note by a friend that left Richmond two days that none of my letters have been received, though they had sent to the Postoffice every day. You may be assured it goes hard with any one.
Who is in fault? It is thought by those I the division that those persons connected with the Richmond Postoffice can remedy this evil. If it is not answered or remedied in a short time, some one will speak more pointedly.
HIGH PRIVATE
In the rear rank, Pickett’s Division.1
Source:
- No Title. Richmond Examiner. November 25, 1864, p. 2 col. 4 ↩