Radio Script #386

Little Talks on Common Things

September 21, 1958

Preserved in the family archives of many Kennebec homes are letters from soldiers in the Civil War. Such a packet of letters was recently handed to me by the daughter of the late Albert Hatch of Fairfield. The letters were written by Alonzo Hatch, Albert’s oldest brother.

The Hatch family originated in Jefferson, Maine, where some of them still live. There Hiram and Susan Hatch had six sons and one daughter. The first to come to Fairfield, where an uncle and aunt by the name of Day already lived, was the daughter Evalina, who for some time worked as a maid in the home of Mrs. Edward Totman at a weekly wage of $1.50. She later married and her son, now a very aged man, still lives at Jefferson. Later her brothers Will, John, Charles and Albert all settled in ~airfield, where they pursued the occupation they had learned from their father, that of shoemaker. John became a well known Baptist evangelist, and Will soon left the shoemaker’s bench to till a small farm. Albert, with the help of Charles, conducted Fairfield’s best known shoemaker’s shop until his death about twenty years ago. Another brother, Edward, was known throughout Knox County as Rockland’s best shoemaker.

Hiram Hatch, the father, was evidently a stern parent, putting his sons to work at the shoemaker’s bench as soon as they had finished the common schools. Alonzo, as the oldest, was the first to feel the sternness and the boredom of that task. He resented it and by no means in silence. Evidently he had a sharp quarrel with his father when one day in December, 1863, he walked all the way from Jefferson to Augusta to enlist in the Army of the Union.

His letters to his mother and his sister Evalina began at Camp Coburn, near Augusta, on December 10, 1863. That first letter was addressed to the sister. He wrote: “I bunk with a fellow by the name of Thomas Battle. He doesn’t swear nor drink nor play cards. Last night the soldiers would be in their bunks and swear at each other so that it would make your blood run cold to hear them. Thomas would lie and groan when they swore. I dontt feel homesick one mite. I wouldn’t go home to stay, not for a farm in my native town. I haven’t got my uniform yet. When I do, I will have my daguerotype taken and send it to you.”

Will was Alonzo’s favorite brother. In that very first letter he said: “Ask Willie how he feels sitting on the shoemaker’s bench. Tell him to keep up his courage, and ask him if Father’s eyebrows are white yet.”

The day before Christmas, Alonzo wrote Evalina again. He thanked her for a towel and a Testament she had sent him, then added: QWe have hard bread and beef and some flour bread, rice, baked beans, tea and coffee, which is a little better than sweetened water, but not much. Our clothing is good. The shirts are cotton and wool, drawers are cotton flannel, nice and warm; stockings are cotton and wool. I am well contented. Everything is lovely and the old goose hangs high.”

On the last day of the year Alonzo wrote to his mother. He assured her he hadn’t forgotten the old family religion, though “We have no Sundays here. Business goes on just the same as any weekday. They swap watches, play cards, sing songs and swear. Last night, when we were watering the horses, I heard someone swearing. I turned to look at him, and though in the army now, he was only a boy. I took him by the hand and talked to him. Now, says I, you have enlisted to go South, and if you get shot down there, where will your soul go to? Says he, ‘It will go to Hell, I spose. I I talked with him some time and told him the consequence of such things. He dropped his head and said, ‘I know it is a bad habit.’ He looked mighty pitiful.”

Early in January Alonzo wrote his mother that he had received his first army pay. “I will send it home to you”, he wrote, “and I want you to use it. Buy yourself some clothes and go to meeting. Dress up and step out lively. Then you can say how nice you feel because your son has dressed you up.” By this time Evalina too was thinking about leaving home. When Alonzo wrote to her early in 1864, he said: “You spoke about going to Boston. I don’t know but it will be the best move you can make. But don’t go till I leave Augusta. I hear that you and Father and Willie plan to come over here soon to see me. Please come just as soon as you can. Be sure to bring Willie. r know he would like to see my horse.” (Alonzo was in the cavalry.)

Alonzo had apparently been interested in a girl named Abbie. He told his sister, “If Abbie don’t care anything about me, the game is up. I have got about weaned from her anyhow.”

Later he wrote Eva1ina, explaining his break with Abbie. Alonzo had been home on a brief furlough and had asked Abbie to go to a social gathering at a hall in the village. Instead she went with a fellow named Gilbert. Alonzo wrote: “She said she had promised to go with Gill and didn’t know I was coming home. Gill told her if she went with me he would never take her on a ride again. She said she wanted to come over to Augusta and see the soldiers and she thought it would be best to let Gill come with her because I was going away and she wouldn’t have anyone to go with while I was gone. She has written me two letters since I got back to camp and begs me to excuse her. She said she didn’t enjoy herself one bit when I was home on account of Gilbert. I really don’t know what to think of her, but I probably better forget her.”

Early in March – Alonzo was still at Camp Coburn – his father, sister, and Willie did visit him. He wrote his mother: “I was very glad to see them, but I should have been more pleased if you had come too. You must come before we leave here. Don’t be afraid. Do come. But, there. I expect it will be so muddy that you can’t get here, but I would give one ten dollar greenback to have you come. It has rained here for five straight days, and the mud is almost knee deep. I expect the road to Jefferson is just as bad. We may leave here within a week. The colonel has gone to Portland and it is probabl~ to arrange for our leaving. That is all right with me. I want to get out where I can see someth i ng. I~

Sure enou~h, within the week Alonzo was in Portland, about to embark for the South. He wrote his mother on March 18: “I have seen a good many things I never saw before. The harbor is full of ships and steamers, a pretty sight. Think of it, Mother, I had a ride on the cars from Augusta to Portland, the first time I have ever been on them. By Orin, didn’t they go pretty! By the jumping Moses, was I happy! How big r felt to ride in the cars and because at last I have seen the big’ city of Portland. Mother,I sent $80 home by William Weeks the day we left Camp Coburn. I want you to use as much of it as you want, and let Evalina have any of it that she needs.”

Alonzo’s next letter to his mother was mailed from New Orleans. He had had a very rough passage on the troop ship from ‘Portland to the Louisiana city, but he proudly told his mother he hadn 1 t been one mite seasick. He wrote: “My poor old horse died on the voyage. We lost 50 horses. I never witnessed such a scene before. The ship rolled so that it galled sores on the horses’ breasts and legs as big as my two hands. The sbres would fester and we would have to kill the horses and throw the carcasses overboard into the Gulf Stream. One day we had a tremendous thunder storm. The wind blew furiously and there were steady flashes of lightning. The ship’s captain said he hadn’t seen it so rough for ten years. About midnight one of the sergeants told us all togo on deck, for he feared the ship would sink.” Only a few of us went on deck. The rest were so sick or so scared that they stayed right in their bunks. We were 22 days going from Portland to the mouth of the Mississippi river. When we were going up the Mississippi it was a lot different from out on the ocean calm and lovely. We had a bully time. The niggers were thick as flies and we saw some handsome plantations with orange trees and mules running around and birds singing — the prettiest sight I ever saw. I never felt so happy in my 1 i fee Sometimes we would be so ne’ar the shore that we could ta 1 k with the niggers. They would laugh and show their teeth. They are surely a happy people. I am 3,000 miles from home but still I am contented. Last night, with three other fellows, I went into the city. It is fifty times bigger than Augusta, which I think is the largest place you ,ever saw. It is a very pretty city full of the handsomest nigger wenches.”

On May 1, 1864 Alonzo wrote his mother that he was sending her a letter instead of a Maybasket. His thoughts turned again to that favorite brother. “I think of Willie often”, he wrote, “sitting on that old bench. I pity him. I am the lucky one, enjoying myself much better than I should on that old bench. By the jumping applesauce, am I 1uckyl But don’t”let Willie get di~couraged. Some day I’ll be home again and get him off that bench. TeTl him to keep a stiff upper lip and write to me often. Give my love to all my friends if I st ill have any in Jefferson.”

While in New Orleans, Alonzo went out on his first raid, but it was not to shoot Confederates, but only to rustle provisions. He told his mother about it: “We went on a scout to see what we could find. We had’ got our haversacks full of new potatoes when we heard a man yelling at us. We scampered away at a great rate, I tell you. We got the cooks to make a soup and treated th~ whole company. Here it is only the 8th of May, and think of it, Mother, new potatoes as big as hens’ eggs!”

Alonzo was still thinking about Willie, for this is how the letter ends: “Tell Willie I want him to put something in your letters. I should like to see him very much. Ask him if he wouldn’t like to have a good hair pull. Tell him to take good care of my trunk and not lose anything out of it.” When Alonzo next wrote, he knew that Evalina had left home, but not for Boston. She had gone to Fairfield to stay with the Days until she found work.

To his mother Alonzo wrote: “You must be feeling lonely with Evalina and me both gone. But be of good cheer, dear Mother; the time will come when we shall all meet again. Now I want you to read what I now write word for word to Willie. Willie, I want you to mind your dear mother in everything she tells you to do. Be good to her, for she has been very good to you. When I get home I will bring you something pretty.” Alonzo’s company went into camp at Greenville, Louisiana. He told his mother about his experience on picket duty. “I had orders not to let anyone on the grounds to sell anything but milk. A woman, two girls and a boy came along with things to sell, and I ordered them to halt. They kept coming right along. I asked them if they had heard what I said, and if they didn’t get out I would run my horse right over them. At the same time I put the spurs to the horse and made for them, with the horse’s mouth wide open. They ran, ye1ling and screaming, and didn’t come back. It gave me a good laugh, by Jimminy!”

The same letter reveals some of Civil War slang that has now been long forgotten. Alonzo wrote: “In our company Theodo·re Clark has been promoted to lieutenant in a negro regiment. If he rates that, I’ll soon be a gigadeer brindle.” Did you ever hear that expression for brigadier general?

By that time Alonzo had got his first sound of warfare, though no direct contact with it. “I have got where I can hear the roar of cannon. A few days ago I saw about 12,000 cannon balls in one pile. Things begin to look like war, but they think the war won’t last long. But I want to kill one or two rebels before it ends. We are all coming home this fall, I guess.”

Alonzo Hatch did not get home that fall, and though the war did end in the following April, Alonzo was not among those discharged. His discharge came from the hands of the grim reaper in a hospital in Florida, where he died of malarial fever in less than a year after he had enlisted at Augusta. Weill tell you next week about Alonzo’s last months in the army and how the news of his passing reached the family in Jefferson. But for now we must say Good Night for Old Times’ Sake.

Year: 1958