This Civil War soldier letter was written by Seth McKendree Bishop (1839-1879), the son of Chauncey Bishop (1801-1882) and Samantha Stearns (1803-1867) of Readsboro, Bennington county, Vermont. Seth was married to Susan E. Whitney (1846-1910) in 1864.
Seth enlisted in Co. I, 4th Vermont Infantry on 12 April 1862. He reenlisted on 28 March 1864 and was discharged for disability on 20 January 1865, never having fully recovered from the wound he sustained on 3 June 1864 in the Battle of Cold Harbor.
This letter was penned February 6, 1864 from Seth's regimental camp near Brandy Station, Virginia. He wrote his "absent sister." A warm letter, as he is lonely and hopes to return home. Bit hard to read but a general camp letter.
Seth’s parents, Chauncey Bishop and Samantha Stearns
Seth returned to Readsboro after the war and took up farming but his health was ruined and he died of “pulmonary consumption” in 1879 at the age of 40. His wife, the former Harriet S. Hicks, collected a widow’s pension for his service for forty years after his death. They had one son named Ernie, born in 1869.
Most likely the Bishop family were Methodists. Seth’s middle name probably comes from William McKendree who was an early Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The expression “going to meeting” is also often used which was an expression common among Methodists. Seth seems not to have been much of a practitioner of the family faith, however, as he mentions drinking whiskey—a drink forbidden by Methodists except for medicinal purposes.