Private George Cramer, 11th Pennsylvania Infantry

Over the next few weeks, I hope to start posting parts of letters that I am coming across in the course of my research. Today, I would like to share a few lines from several letters written by Private George Cramer of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. These typed transcripts of letters were donated by Private Cramer's descendants, and can be found in the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry file in the Antietam National Battlefield library. Private Cramer became ill just before the Battle of South Mountain, and was thus not directly engaged on either the 14th or 17th of September. His letters mention this, referring to South Mountain as the battle fought on Sunday, and Antietam as being fought on Wednesday. His letters give a sense of the exhausted nature of the men, as well as the attrition that the campaign was taking on them. I have italicized one section in the letter of the 21st to highlight those portions which display the effect the campaign was having on the strength of the 11th Pennsylvania. Not only do these letters describe attrition by sickness and casualties, they show that soldiers such as George Cramer firmly understood the stakes of the Maryland Campaign.

September 21^st, 1862

Dear Wife,

I have no doubt that you are all anxiety and trouble about me, and disappointed in not getting a letter from me before this, but I assure you it was impossible for me to write to you before this. Since receiving your last, we have been pushed forward where we met the enemy on the mountain between Frederick and Hagerstown, the details of it you will have received through the newspapers which are nowise exaggerated. In my last letter, if you received it, I stated that I have not been well since we left Hall’s Hill, Virginia, and I had not got better all along. On Sunday evening this day last week, forcing the mountain, I was forced to leave ranks and sank down at a tree. It just commenced getting dark, the battle raging furious. I rested for a while and then walked down where our brigade had left its knapsacks. George Righter I met there, sick like myself. We have been together ever since, both almost unable to walk. But this day we came up to our brigade and many a face is missing among us. General Harsuff [sic] is seriously wounded. Colenel [sic] R. Coulter commands the brigade. Captain Kuhn took sick on the march. When we came to Frederick he was compelled to leave the company and go to the hospital. Lieutenant Noble is also in some hospital. Maybe he was taken back to Washington. He took sick before the Bull Run fight, but still tried to stick it out and fought hard at that fight which I believe done him no good. He still kept on and kept with regiment coming from Virginia on to Washington but somewhere between Washington and Frederick he was compelled to stay back. I suppose his people know his whereabouts. Our company has neither captain, lieutenant, nor any sergant [sic], only corporals to command us. We have but one captain in our regiment. The rest is killed, wounded, or back sick. Our Lieutenant colonel got killed at Bull Run. Also our Major was wounded so we have but one field officer in the regiment, and his attention is more required to the brigade now than he can pay to our regiment since Hartsuff is wounded. So you can see we are in a bad trim.

…

These battles which have been fought here in Maryland will bring sorrow to a great many families as the loss on both sides was heavy. If only God would have mercy on the nation and put a stay to this bloodshed. He has protected me so far and can further if his will.

I must close short with my best wishes to all friends,

And my sincere love to you and Maney.

Yours

George Cramer

September 29, 1862

…

Dear Mary, no doubt you are more anxious to hear how I’m getting along than about anything else. Since we’re laying here resting I got quite well and begin to pick up fast. Of course I’m weak yet and it would set hard if there should a forward movement be made, which I hope will not be for a while, for the authorities can’t be blind to the fact that the old army is a set of men wore down almost unfit for service at present. It is true they fought the last battles (there was but a few regiments in the last actual fight), and were victorious too, but they fought with the last desperation to stop an invading foe from advancing on to their own fireside, and the same time to make good again that most shamefull [sic] defeat of Bull Run which was not caused by the want of bravery by the men, but by the ill management, yes, sometimes it is thought through treachery, of some of our generals.

…

Hurrah for the Militia that stopped the Rebels! But us poor fellows had to fight them and many a brave fellow had to bite dust and thousands to be crippled for life. But their will is a credit to them.

...

"Heroism needs no label to proclaim its quality."

I wanted to take a moment to post a few lines from an address given by Frederick Hitchcock, a Major with the 132nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, who was present for Pennsylvania Day at Antietam and the dedication for the 132nd Pennsylvania Monument on September 17, 1904. I think you will find the words to be very moving; they certainly fit well with our nation's Memorial Day commemorations this weekend. The 132nd Pennsylvania was one of the many "green" regiments in the Union army at the Battle of Antietam. These men received their baptism by fire on the hills and fields surrounding Bloody Lane on September 17, 1862. Out of roughly 750 present, the 132nd Pennsylvania suffered 152 casualties. Years later, as the survivors gathered once again to commemorate and honor the sacrifices of their comrades in arms, Major Hitchcock delivered these remarks. He began with introductions, thank yous, and other pleasantries; once he finished with setting the scene, Hitchcock set out upon the primary purpose of his speech, to remember the sacrifices of so many soldiers so long ago....

 132nd Pennsylvania Monument at Antietam

The richest possession of any people is its heritage of noble deeds and heroic sacrifices.

Human freedom has ever been attained and maintained at the cost of blood and treasure. The world is full of the graves of patriotic martyrs. Our comrades who fell here, joined the illustrious throng of the world’s heroes. Their noble spirit was well voiced by the intrepid former Captain of the Revolution, Nathan Hale, when he said, standing under the halter in the very shadow of death, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

Heroism knows no rank or station. It exalts all to the highest plane… And when amidst the wild clangor of war, or upon the lonely picket line, in hospital or prison pen, a noble life is immolated upon the altar of Liberty, the supreme sacrifice has been made, the spirit is the same. In every instance the hero has earned immortal honor. Heroism needs no label to proclaim its quality. Wherever found it exemplifies the richest and noblest characteristics of humanity. It is said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Not less true is it, that the blood of patriots always and everywhere has been the  seed of civil and religious liberty….

If, like our forefathers, it was ours to pass through ‘days which tried men’s souls,” in the service of our country, like them we have been permitted to reap richly of the harvest of victory, and far over and beyond them, we have seen our beloved country emerge from her struggle for life, purged of the cancer of slavery which produced it, and advance gloriously step by step to the very forefront of the nations, until today “Old Glory” not a stripe erased nor a star dimmed, the Emblem of liberty, the hope of humanity, kisses the morning breeze all around the world.

But my comrades and fellow citizens we may not rest upon past achievements… It was ours to be faithful and true here, let it still be ours to remain faithful and true yonder. The final battle for our country has not yet been won. Her hundred and twenty-eight years of existence are, let us hope, scarcely more than her infancy. If she is to enjoy a nation’s life, she is no only on the borderland of her youth. Her future is in the hands of her sons today, one may well pause with fear, when he beholds the shoals and rocks which loom upon in the track of our ship of state, but far be it from me, under the inspiration of these scenes, to utter one discordant note of prophecy. The blood shed here shall not have been poured out in vain. Her sons of the future will rise and meet new dangers as they appear, and our country shall move grandly forward meeting the coming generation with the message of old Liberty Bell still voicing her destiny, now swelling into a grander anthem, and proclaiming liberty throughout the wide world ‘to all the inhabitants thereof.’”

Hitchcock went on to describe the statue, which depicts a lone color bearer holding the American flag, moving forward toward the guns of the enemy: 

And now in concluding this grateful service, we leave this mute but eloquent statue, a representation of one of the color bearers of this regiment, still holding aloft his flag though the staff has been shot away. The scene is true to life.

Let it speak to coming generations of duty well done. Let its radiant heroic figure be a type of the true American citizen-soldier—ever inch a man, true to his country; ever ready to bare his breast to her foes; undismayed by difficulties; undaunted by danger and unyielding in duty, though death be the cost.

Hitchcock's address reminds us of the character of the American soldiers whom we honor this Memorial Day: "undismayed by difficulties, undaunted by danger, and unyielding in duty, though death be the cost."