Monday, February 12, 2024

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne, August 23, 1862

Night. Home again. We left Hudson at 5 A. M. Were delayed in Chatham, waiting for the Harlem train, long enough to make quite a visit with brother William and his wife Laura. Uncle Daniel was there also. There is little else talked of but the war. Men are arranging their business so as to go, and others are "shaking in their boots" for fear they will have to go. I don't waste any sympathy on this latter class. There are some I would like to see made to go. They belong in the Southern army, where all their sympathy goes.

I found our folks well and glad to see me. I have no sort of doubt of that. Just as we had had supper, Obadiah Pitcher came with his buggy and offered to take me to call on some friends; this I thought too good a chance to lose, and we went south. We found so many, and there was so much talking, it was Sunday morning when we came back.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 9-10

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