From A.J. Huntoon to My Beloved Wife and Boy
Mapleton, Bourbon Co. Kans. Sunday Sept. 15th 1861 My Beloved Wife & Boy,
It is a long while since I have received one of your letters, can it be owing to sickness? I hope not. I am anxious to hear often. I cannot think but what you write, but they are all delayed in coming through[.] that will be remedied ere long[.] I think I hardly know what I wrote you last: there has been so much on my mind & for my hands to do, that I have no remembrance of where my last ended. Last Tuesday morning our Reg’t. left Ft. Lincoln in company with [[MS. illegible]], Montgomery’s & Jennison’s regiments, commanded by Gen. [[MS. torn]] person, for Mo., what particular point is unknown, as all orders are secret. I was left with our sick.
On Thursday was ordered to move my sick to Mapleton, the seat of the General Hospital for the brigade, to assist Dr. Gilpatrick of Anderson Co. Brigade Surg. & Dr. Scott of Allen Co. Surg. Of 4th Regt. in taking charge of the institution, where I may have to stay for the present, judging from appearances. I would rather go on to the field. I am free from all danger here, but it is so confining.
Have a very good building for our sick. Mapleton is 6 ms. west of Ft. Lincoln, on Little Osage, 15 ms. from Ft. Scott. We have some 40 patients under treatment; one with a broken thigh [T.M.?] Laws of N.H. says he is acquainted with sister Hannah, used to attend school at Westminster. One shot through the knee, at the late battle on Dry Wood Creek ; one through the arm; one in the groin; one with a fractured skull from a blow, with a spade on the top of the head--bad--& one with 2 fingers shot away—accidental. Three bad cases of lung disease—the rest are bowel derangements, Int. Fever & Remittent, Generally doing well.
I was pleasantly surprised on Thursday morning by the arrival of Joel in camp. He was from home, having left Mo. a few days before. He stopped but a short time, but on toward the command as he wished to see J.H. Lane. You need not be disappointed to hear [of] him next in the army, either as captain, or a regimental officer.
It is impossible to lay idle in this section of country at present, when treason shows its dragon head in every settlement, and our homes, our liberties and our lives are threatened if we dare avow our principles and sympathies on the side of the American Union. You, in N.H. where rumors of armies and war, are the absorbing items of interest, know nothing, [[ ] ] nothing of its realities. The battle ground of the west which Mo. is destined to be, [[MS. illegible]] being laid waste by the approaching armies. Females & children are all that commands respect, & in many cases their homes are fired over their heads. I must close, for I have been absent from the sick to long already.
With much love & affection for my Lizzie & Prentice
I Remain A.J. Huntoon
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