GOODELL FAMILY LETTERS- #14
 

Anson to Father

                                                                                    Foster Hospital
 Feb 9, 1863

Dear Father:

            Your kind favor of the 30^th came to hand this morning and was gratefully received I assure you for it always does me much good to hear from you whether at home or elsewhere.

            You have my warmest thanks for the deep interest taken in me and your endeavors to lighten my labors or improve my situation. While I should be glad to get an appointment of some kind and would gladly seize an opportunity to better myself yet what to say with regard to a choice of position I don’t know. I don’t want to rid myself of work or any amount of labor that I am competent to perform. I am willing to work and should be glad of any position that I am qualified to fill – whether “clerk” or “hod carrier.”

            At present I am nurse and having employment during the day and sleep normally nights – have an excellent bed and am not exposed to the weather at all and as far as ease and comfort go toward filling up destiny I have all my share of them – but it seems so much like wasting time when things come along so easy and smooth with no hard work and no care that I feel uneasy and hardly feel right in staying here but someone must and it may as well be me as anyone.

            While I write I have to keep one eye on a poor emaciated Irishman and be ready to answer any call from the patients. We have thirty two beds in the ward all of which are occupied excepting two. Only three of the patients however are obliged to keep their beds all the time – one of these is but just alive and we watch him expecting at any moment he will breathe his last.

            But one has died since I’ve been here and he was a member of the 9^th Vermont that had received his discharge and was not quite well enough to endure the passage to N. York so came her to “stay a few days” as he remarked on coming in but his few days brought at their expiration the grim monster Death blasting all his fond hopes of meeting dear friends.

            How long I remain here is of course uncertain but is probably I shall not leave before spring that is if the rebels don’t clean us out as they have threatened to and came near doing last week and would have done if they had only dared to make an assault on the place. With all the civilians and darkey added to our garrison we cannot with our present force man more than two thirds of our fortifications. The enemy is hovering around yet and threatens another attack but we hope for reinforcements and wonder why they don’t come.

            The city is quiet but a few cannon shots would throw it into the whirlpool of excitement again. The rebels have tried so many times to take the place that the excitement quickly abates after the roar of cannon ceases.

            It is nearly a fortnight since I received a letter from home. My health remains good and hoping this will find you well. I will subscribe

                                                          Your Affectionate Son

                                                                                    Anson

Enc W. Goodell Boston Mass

 [Written on first page left corner]

I received a letter from Wm. P. Stone and learn that he is well and talks of reenlisting.