1865 CHAMBERSBURG, PA MILITARY HOSPITAL LETTER AND COVER – CONCERNING SOLDIER IN THE 201ST PA

1865 CHAMBERSBURG, PA MILITARY HOSPITAL LETTER AND COVER – CONCERNING SOLDIER IN THE 201ST PA

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This is a neat, official letter written from the U.S.A. Post Hospital at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1865, together with its original mailing envelope. The surgeon in charge writes to Maj. Ames, U.S. Army Paymaster, in reply to an inquiry about a sick soldier's pay status. He states that Thomas Shean, a private in Company E, 201st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, was mustered at the hospital for the months of September and October 1864. He adds that the soldier was admitted as a patient on September 29, 1864, suffering from remittent fever. The letter closes with the formal phrases of the day, hoping the information will prove satisfactory, and is signed by G. B. Dunmire, Acting Assistant Surgeon, U.S.A., in charge.

The envelope is addressed to Maj. H. Ames, Paymaster U.S.A., Washington, D.C. It bears a 3-cent rose Washington stamp of the 1861 issue, tied by a target cancel, with a bold Chambersburg, Pa. circular datestamp of March 20. The upper left corner is docketed "O.B."

The 201st Pennsylvania was raised around Harrisburg in August 1864 for one year's service. Most of its men came from Dauphin County, with additional men from Franklin, Perry and Cumberland counties. After organizing, the regiment went into camp near Chambersburg for drill. Company E was ordered to Scranton on September 18, and the rest of the regiment left Chambersburg at the end of the month. Private Shean was admitted to the hospital just as his regiment was leaving, which explains why his muster for those two months was taken at the hospital rather than with his company. That kind of gap was exactly what the Paymaster's office had to sort out before a soldier could be paid.

Chambersburg had been burned by Confederate cavalry under John McCausland only a few months earlier, in July 1864. This letter comes from the Union military presence that remained there through the end of the war. It is a nice example of how the army's paperwork followed every soldier, even a sick private left behind in a hospital bed, and the matching cover makes it a complete postal history piece.

Condition: Very good. The letter is on lined paper with original mailing folds and is clean and bright, with a small light stain at the left margin. The ink is dark and fully legible. The envelope has even toning and a light crease near the center, with a clean, well-struck stamp and postmark. Both pieces are housed in a protective sleeve.   [cm] [ph:L]

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