Name/Title
Letter dated Aug 28, 1864 signed DSM Bull and W J McCormick (during Civil War I believe)Entry/Object ID
000140Tags
Unknown Bull, W J McCormickSubject
Rockville Aug 28th 1864
Dear friends,
We received your letter in due time and we were glad to hear from you. If we have been backward in writing, it has been mostly through negligence. I for one have been intending to send another of your letters at an early date and commenced one on the first day of August but was then taken suddenly down with fever. I was taken with severe fever but am better than to be trusted to do all my strength away and I was so I scarcely had any strength after that. I have gained slowly. I can walk about pretty fair and think in about a week or ten days more I will be quite well. My hand tremble some yet and is better one in writing. One more girl was taken with fever at the same time. She was taken two and has been very sick. She has been troubled with sickness in her back & spine. Annie was attacked with the black spotted fever. She was handled very severely & cunningly. After about a week she got quite good and sat up some then was attacked. It fastened in her right thigh or hip a severe & sharp pain that the doctor could not manage. Everything that could be done was tried but still she suffered. She had the grip. This keep her on her back for two months. She was so helpless that we had to lift or move her on & sheet. Her parts finally opened and discharged from 5 of 9 sittings. We commenced to probe her once or twice then needles the doctor lanced & proved sufficient. He raised some three or four times and after discharge freely the pain abated. She then began to get better. In a month or more had to use crutches. She is now quite well. She walks without crutches but limps some. She thinks her hip will become calloused and won’t be a sore. Mrs. Cable from a similar disease herself was that of about her last winter & others who live same.
Something is that we have 2.60 per day since writing. I learn we are to have 2.90 from the first of August.
Salute to Our love & respect to you all
To Mr. Bull
W.J. McCormick
…ruined for life. I had great difficulty in procuring female help — all being afraid of the fever. Sometimes I would send out and get a good nurse but in a day or so I would be left alone — we have had since last spring twelve different girls & 3 nurses and part of them have been selected for either an children. They looked but were handled very careful they have been sick a good deal with fever & sharp pain would suddenly take them then as soon as they came back or but partially they escape a regular attack of the dreaded fever and sickness has cost me near two hundred dollars and Doctor’s hard three dollars a visit. We had a fever enough here the fever broke but gone back since and come & things now look worse the Corn crop here promises to be very heavy Goshen & Chandler’s part have ten pieces of corn as fine as I ever saw most cut bulked up this year agree’d deed has been favorable this season potatoes now look good but will be not much more than half a crop, they sell at two dollars per bushel here.
I am still at the carpentering business here. David has moved out here and is to work with me we each get $2.60 per day. I should have done well this summer had it not been for last time & Doctor’s bills. David lives about 40 rods from us. James White’s old farm of John White has been of work with us all summer he boards with David the youngest son of David a little boy has been very sick for two or three weeks past he had the inflammation in the bowels but is now getting better he has gone for some every afternoon but the Doctor thinks he will break it. David was enrolled in Abington township & they have raised large sums of money and have filled their quota. Three of the Men liable to draft each paid 40 dollars apiece, their part was raised as a tax by the town so said it was a tax from the town, so as far as with me it is quite different to those in the town of Cloahill, we are just behind in our quarter one they has been doing a great many years and has left for parts unknown, and it is said that all the men in the box for this town will put fill our quarter so that every one in will be drawn and still our number not filled up. Some one received draft notice a few days ago took their families & moved about ten towns off, they get their names changed from one town to the other for the 40, and I think if I would stand my ground and meet things as they occur this draft is a heavy tax upon the people and it gives the people here about a good deal of anxiety.
But I think peace is not far off the early coming is tired of war it has come to a severe consideration and there is a general desire on both sides for peace that general desire can only be turned into power within itself and I think the day not far distant when it will be manifest itself in some way towards a peace, still there is a mighty distance between the real peace only by the independence of our only to keep our county together. I think we are justified in making tremendous efforts to keep our county a unit for the sake of the patriots we go & put and will never be what we have been.
Next ourselves that we often think of them and would like to come and see you all. I have both heard building and land and some of the families own our hands and the times being hard we have not commenced them in the way we would have liked, but if we are not drafted and otherwise blessed, summer it will be some more attention here gets exclusively to the getting things done. I send to our folks please hand it to them let us hear from you soon and all about to sound as to know nothing of his cruel conduct to them his whereabouts.
Our love & respect to you all
W. J. McCormick
D. D. M. VaultRelationships
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Unknown Bull, W J McCormick
