A Letter Home from
Pvt. Delano Warren
1846-1866
Naval School Hospital
Annapolis, Maryland
Sabbath has come again and I am seated to write to you again. I am still here in the same room that I was a week ago and some better I think. I hope these few lines will find you all well and doing well.
I am where I can look out the window and see them rake out Oysters, and lots of Steamboats and Freight sailing vessels. The cars run close by or run right here and stop. There is plenty of mule teaming going on here. The wind blows pretty hard and the whitecaps roll some here. I guess they must roll out on the bay pretty high. It snowed a little last Friday enough to whiten the ground but it all went off the next day. The ground is bare. I must tell you children another thing that I can see by the dozen all the time - that is sea gulls. They are a large white bird that [glides] over the water all the while. They will light into the water but do not stay long at a time.
I don't know how long we shall stay here but you can write a letter and if I never get it will not be much loss as if you had written - as soon as you get my other letter it would have been here. I left word to City Point if any letters came there for me to direct them back to Machias.
Don't fret yourselves about me for time wears away and if I live it will not be long before we shall be together again and if I do not it will not be long if we are prepared to go home in Heaven above. Brothers and sisters, be preparing for that home where war is not known but where it's all Peace, love, joy and happiness forever.
I make myself respectably contented wherever I am. It would be very pleasant here in the Summer season. I bought me a knife the other day and paid one dollar for it. I got 50 cents for making a ring and have got 10 cents left. I don't know what I shall do for more but then I really don't need it. Only an apple or a piece of cake or cheese or glass of cider or dish of Oysters don't go very bad and in a while perhaps we shall be paid off soon but no one can tell.
I did think we should be sent away from here before this time but we cannot tell how long we will be here or where we shall be sent to if we go away from here. In fact you cannot tell one moment what you will do or where you will be the next in a soldier's life. There is not much to write that I can think of. I wrote a letter to George the other day and one to the rest of them. If you write a letter here, direct [it] to
Division No. 1
Annapolis, Md.
Delano Emerson Warren enlisted as a private in Co. C of the 183rd Regiment of the New York State Voluntary Infantry at Dunkirk, NY. This regiment was shortly after absorbed into Co. A, 188th Regiment NYSV. His enlistment papers describe Delano as a young man of 18 years, 5' 9" tall, blue eyes, light hair and light complexion, occupation: mechanic. Delano fought at the Battle at Hatcher's Run in Virginia on October 27, 1864. It was the first battle for his regiment and seven weeks after his enlistment. During his war service, Delano contracted TB.
Though he spent many months at army hospitals in Washington, D.C.; West Philadelphia, PA; Annapolis and Baltimore, MD, Delano never recovered. He was mustered out, an invalid, on June 10, 1865 at Elmira, NY and died at home one year later of incipient tuberculosis. He never married.
Delano wrote this letter to his brother Leonard Ebenezer Warren at the family home in Machias, Cattaraugus Co., New York. Their family then consisted of his father Lucius Platt Warren, brother Leonard, sisters Amelia and Eliza, and the youngest, George. Their mother, Melissa (Reynolds) Warren, was killed in a tragic accident in October 1856. After her death, baby George was raised by his Aunt Diadema Warren and her husband Jonathan Tenney Adams, who lived in Darien, Genesee Co., NY, and Shelby, Oceana Co., MI.
Lucius Platt Warren (1820-1896) ran a sawmill near Ischua Creek in Machias. He was one of 12 children of Ebenezer Warren (b 4 Dec 1769) and Ann Rice or Royce (b 13 Jul 1777) of Covington, NY. Melissa Reynolds (1824-1856) was the daughter of Peter Reynolds (1799-1862) and Rhoda Mariah Green from Rhode Island.
Some of Lucius' 11 siblings moved to Michigan, others settled in Genesee Co., Cattaraugus Co., and Wyoming Co., NY. If you have Warrens from these areas, please contact me! Thank you.
Links
New York Volunteers
188th Regiment, Co. A
My Mohr & Allied Lines (Temporarily unavailable while moving)
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New York State and the Civil War
Dakota State University American Civil War Page
Cattaraugus Co., NY GenWeb
Wyoming Co., NY GenWeb
Genesee Co., NY GenWeb
U.S. Resources for New York
My Main Links Page (Temporarily unavailable while moving)
My Other Genealogy Pages
The Warren Family Bible
The Ebenezer
Warren Genealogy Club
The
Geyer Family : Germans from Russia
Donshea Dunshea
Dunshee Genealogy
The Mohr Moore Maurer Melting
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