Dated “Cowan Tennessee March 2^nd / 1864.” Addressed to “Dear father and mother.” 4 pp. in ink on unlined paper, 5” x 8. Exhibits fold-marks, else VG, and entirely legible.

Henry F. Prindle was a resident of Simsburg, CT, who enlisted and mustered as a private in Co. “B”, 5th Connecticut Infantry, 7/5/1861. He was transferred to Co. “G”, 20th Connecticut Regt., 1/11/1864, and transferred back to Co. “B”, 5th Connecticut, 3/26/1864. He was mustered out at the conclusion of his 3 year enlistment, 7/22/1864.

Prindle’s 5^th CT regiment, which included his brother Isaac, was mustered in July 1861. In 1862 it served in the Dept. of the Shenandoah and with Gen. Popes Army of VA., participating the Valley Campaign against Stonewall Jackson’s forces, engaged at the Battles of Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run. After which it was attached to the 12th Army Corps with which it was engaged in the 1863 Battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg [in action on Culp’s Hill, July 2-3, 1863]. After which it transferred to the Western theater, joining Sherman’s Army for the Atlanta Campaign and its March to the Sea and through the Carolinas, and being present at the Battle of Bentonville and at Gen. Johnston’s confederate surrender. During service the unit lost 110 men killed and mortally wounded and 83 men by disease for a total of 193.

In this letter, Private Prindle writes his parents concerning the politics of veteran re-enlistment. He says that while the re-enlisting members of his 5^th Connecticut were sent home on leave, he and 29 others who chose not to re-enlist are to be transferred to fill out the 20^th Connecticut, and then transferred back once the 20^th has filled its ranks, and then transferred back to the 5^th to complete their 3-year enlistments while the re-enlisted veterans continue on with 5^th till the end of the war.

He remarks of the officers of the 20^th Connecticut that “what I have seen of the 20^th officers I like much better that our old officers,” while adding that the 20^th seemed destined to accompany the Burnside Expedition. All its officers and seem anxious to go, but Prindle says that “it makes little difference to me whether I go or not. I’d as life go with Burnside as any other man but I can’t say whether we will go with him or not.”

He then mentions pay and the grudge that the Colonel of the 5^th CT had against those that chose not to re-enlist. As follows:

“There is four months pay now due us. The Pay master was around the other day paying the troops but did not pay us because we had no payrolls here. When the Regt. went home they carried off our pay rolls. The officers were mad because we would not reenlist and done all they could to injure us. When they get back the Col. will have to stand court-martial for some of his tricks he cut up before he went home.

In protective sleeve. [JP] [ph:L]

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