Dated “Memphis, Tenn., June 15^th, 1863.” Envelope address: “Lyman Holden/ Casco/ Cumberland Co./ Maine.” Salutation “Friend Lyman.” Text:

“I take the present opportunity of writing a few lines to you for the sake of old friendship you know we one to another.

I slept with my whore last night—and you know that will make a man ? thoughtful in the morning. It suples a boy down to what you might call common meter & nothing in the morning is better in the morning to a boy that has been fucking all night than a glass of good old rye whiskey, with a stick in it old fellow.

There is nothing new here at present excepting the movements of the army witch seem to be [?] lively at present. Both sides are receiving reinforcements as fast as they can get them and perhaps before this reaches you the biggest battle that ever was fought in the world will be fought at Vicksburg on the Mississippi river. When I wrote to you last I thought that I should go to Vicksburg, but can’t very well leave at present if business is so pressing.

Yesterday the Southern boys made a dash in on the R. Road and flyed hell generly but those are every day occurences so we do not think nothing of them. I will send you a Memphis paper so you can read the new yourself.

Well old fellow I have got to go to Jackson Ten. Today & shall have to bid you good by old fellow and write to me a long letter and give all the news at Casco. Give the gals a lock of your hair for me.

And don’t you old friend

Prick          Jim Scott.

This letter is one of the most sexually explicit Civil War letters we have seen, and, there is an air of mystery as to its author. Addressed to a friend in in Casco Maine, it is seems likely to have been written by a Maine soldier named “Jim Scott”, and very probably by “James Scott” listed as a 10 year old Casco resident in the earlier 1850 census.

Maine regimental war records list a 19 year old James Scott enlisting Private in Co. “D”, 15^th Maine Infy, 12/23/1861. This regiment served in the West, though primarily in Lousiania (attached to the 19^th Corps), not in Tennessee or anywhere near Memphis, TN. Furthermore, although the author of the letter writes to a friend in Casco, the residence of the 19^-year-old Private enlisting in the 15^th Maine is given as Augusta. Furthermore, the 15^th Maine “James Scott” deserted within a week of his enlistment.

Still and all, although he mentions no regiment, he is conversant with the movement of the armies around Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, and seems to have some connection with them.

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