Arthur Sanford was a Presbyterian minister who served as chaplain for two Indiana infantry regiments, the 8th and the 36th. His service with the 8th was from September 1861 to August 1862 and with the 36th from April 1863 to February 1864. Sanford resigned his post of chaplain in February 1864 due to health problems. He died in Detroit, Michigan on November 28, 1887.
This letter appeared in the Indianapolis Daily Journal on August 17, 1863 on page 1 column 7. The spelling and punctuation are unchanged from the original publication.
Letter from the 36th Indiana
Camp Near Manchester, Tenn,
August 5, 1863.
Dear Journal: In consequence of protracted sickness, my correspondence in behalf of the 36th and its friends, has been for some time interrupted.
It has however given me opportunity for becoming more intimately acquainted with some of the vicissitudes of a soldier’s life; and, particularly such as are incident to the inception of that nondescript institution, an officers [sic] hospital. Only think sir, of a slice of sour bread, (no butter) dried apples, (sourest kind) and elder barriers stewed and a villainous concoction called tea, but which neither smells, looks, or tastes in the remotest degree like the Chinese article, with very brown sugar and no cream—just imagine, a plate and tin cup filled with this provender and slop, and you have the precise idea of the food again and again set before myself and scores of other offices laboring under a convalescing from every disease incident to army life.
But the beauty of the thing consists in the fact, that you are charged 75 cents per day for this “grub,” and 30 cents per day in addition, for servants to cook and feed it to you. If you cannot stand this fare, from 50 cents to $1,00 per day expended in the market, will enable you to patch up the commissariat so that you can subsist quite comfortably; or, you can take boarding outside, at from $5,50 to $10,00 per week, which you do get, and then pay $7,35 per week inside the hospital for board, &c., which you don’t get, and thus also live very respectably. It is but justice to say that the fare was materially improved before I left the institution, but was not then, by any means, a fair equivalent for the price we were charged for it.
I am not now giving locations, numbers or names; nor prefering charges against, or fixing responsibility upon any one; but, simply stating facts, which can be substantiated by scores of reliable witnesses.
This much is undoubtedly true. We paid money enough into the hospital treasury to furnish sufficient and suitable substance—it was in the market—but we did not get it, except as we bought it outside of hospital charges.
To the friends of those composing the 36th, I would say that the officers and men are, almost without exception, in good trim for eating, marching or fighting. Of the first we are daily doing a reasonable share. Of the second I apprehend will have a taste if it ever stops raining, so that the roads on the front become passable for trains and artillery; but I seriously doubt there being much fighting to do for lack of a standing enemy.
The command had a terrible march during the late advance from Murfreesboro, not on account of the distance traveled, but from constant exposure to a pitiless rain of fourteen days’ successive continuance, and which rendered it impossible for them to participate in the fighting consequent upon this advance. Still no one can discover any deterioration of health in consequence. There is no case of sickness in the regiment regarded as dangerous but three at all severe, and all are convalescing.
Every thing moves along quietly with us. Our camp is the best kept and most thoroughly policed in the brigade, if not in the division, and although the 36th may not have attracted as much attention at home as some others not half as long or so efficient in the service; it is, happily, for its future historic reputation, known here by all commanding officers, as one on which, in any and every emergency, it will always be safe to rely.
It has been often under severe and protracted fire; never retired except as commanded, and has never been whipped or captured, and but very few of its members have had paroles in their pockets.
As to the probabilities of our future here I can make no predictions Gen. Rosecrans is paid for arranging those little matters, and we have concluded to let him earn his money.
A. W. Sanford,
Chaplain 36th Indiana.