Four-page autograph letter signed, headed "Acquia Creek May 1[?]th / Commissary Depart[ment]," written by J. W. Sherer, detailed as Post Commissary Sergeant at Aquia Creek Landing, Stafford County, Virginia, and signed with his direction "J. W. Sherer, Commissary Sergeant, Acquia Creek Va." The writer is identified as Jacob W. Sherer of Philadelphia, who enlisted October 23, 1861 and mustered into Company A, 90th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.  Four pages on a single folded sheet of lined paper, blind-embossed stationer's mark. Each page approx. 7 3/4 x 12 1/2 in.

The letter dates to the weeks following the Federal occupation of Fredericksburg in April 1862, when McDowell's command pushed south from the Potomac and Aquia Creek was rebuilt as its supply base. Sherer explains that when his regiment moved on to Fredericksburg, the post commandant kept him behind as commissary sergeant — "I was detached and could not go with them" — and that the Colonel had since filled his place in the company. He writes that he is now on the non-commissioned staff, though "hardly a soldier," having turned over his musket and accoutrements.

The letter is a close observer's account of the depot as it came to life. Sherer reports that a captain of the 95th New York stationed at the landing had a ball put through his cap by a rebel in uniform not two miles out, and predicts guerrilla warfare will make travel unsafe. He writes that the railroad and bridges to Fredericksburg are finished and will be "open for business next Wednesday," that the enemy are reported 8,000 strong about eight miles from the town and talk of "thrashing McDowell," and that Jefferson Davis's coachman had passed through saying matters were "done gone with our people." He inventories the new wharf — three or four steamers, a score of canal boats, six or eight schooners, three locomotives, about fifty cars, and immense stores lying on the beach — and notes that Belle Plain on Potomac Creek had until then been the only point from which stores could be forwarded. With storehouses going up on the wharf, he expects Aquia Creek to become a very important government depot; his department issues the rations for McDowell's division, and he remarks that he and the captain are the only soldiers in it, the rest being civilian employees.

Further passages describe Virginians ("F.F.V.'s") riding in on fine horses to buy salt, which had been selling at $10 a sack, with coffee said to be worth a dollar a pound; his unsuccessful efforts to obtain Confederate notes; and a camp of about one hundred contrabands — men, women and children — at the landing, described in the frank and prejudiced language of the period. He closes with his earlier duty as a company sergeant, which he found more like running a restaurant than a cookhouse — meals for wood-choppers, bridge crews, the guard and the company all at different hours — and reports bad water and dysentery severe enough that many men had been sent to Washington. He sends respects to "Mrs. Henssey" and the family, and remembrances to "the folks in the store," naming Tommy, Edward, Miles and John.

A content-rich, first-hand description of the Aquia Creek supply base during the Fredericksburg occupation of 1862, written from inside the commissary department.

CONDITION:  Mailing folds with separation at the central fold intersections, edge chipping and marginal losses along the outer edges, most pronounced at the right edge of the first page and the left edge of the second, affecting the ends of a few lines. Toning, scattered foxing and staining. Ink bold and legible throughout.   [ss][ph:L]

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