8 Pounds of Butter and Cheese

                                                                         July 28, 1863

Dear Parents,

        As we did not start very early this morning i embrace the opportunity to write a few lines to you to let you know that i am well.  Catherine wrote that Grandfather was very sick and was not expected to live.  he told Catherine to tell me to be a good boy and not desert.  if he yet lives tell him that i will not stain my name by deserting.  tell him he shall have one Grandson that he may feel proud of.  one that i hope is a true patriot who rather perish for his country than live a long life with a dishonored name.  but war is a terrible thing, it makes many homes desolated.  the loss of a husband and father.  the mother loses her son, it may be her only child whom left his peaceful home to protect his country.    we arrived at the battlefield near Gettysburg July 1st and was brought into action July 2nd between 5 and 6 o'clock and fought till about 9 o'clock.  July 3rd fighting commenced early in the morning and lasted all day.  we was relived two or three times during the day to clean our guns but rest was impossable.  July 4th there was not enny fighting where we was to amount to enny thing and we burried our dead.  it rained very hard all of the afternoon and nearly all night July 5th.  our men went over the breastworks that morning and picked up the guns that the Rebs left and burried their dead. got them burried about noon.  then we marched back to the little town where we are now.  i cant tell what is going on now so i will not try for we hear so many romers.  Company A and F lost more men than enny of the others.  the reason why we suffered so much more than the rest of the Regiment was because we was the right of the Regiment and the Rebs flanked us and it was so dark that we could not tell but what they was not our own men for sometime.  we fought Stonewalls old Brigade and whipped them.  the prisoners said that it was the first they had ever been whipped but we had breastworks and they did not.  Will Dodge was wounded in the calf of the leg but no bones broken but i heard afterwards that his leg was broken and last night we had a letter from one of the boys that was in the same hospital that Will was in and he wrote that Will had his leg amputated and died July 13th.  he was wounded in the evening of July 2nd.  i dont know whether his folks heard of it yet or not.  i think it is a chance they have.  it will be sad news to his folks but tell his mother that he was a brave and good soldier and fell in the defence of his country doing his duty at the head of his company.  he was to me almost a brother and now that he is gone it seems almost as though i was left alone among strangers.  we used to set down and talk of home and friends together and read each others letters.  but those times are passed and never to return again.  i did not see him after he was wounded.  he was taken off to the hospital before i knew that he was wounded.  i have got three or four letters that have come to him since he left us and i will wait a spell longer and see if there is enny more comes here to him and than i will take them to the Chaplin and have him send them home to his folks.

                                        this from your son Ira S. Jeffers