Letter seeking help with furlough, New Orleans, 1863
Item 76132 info
Maine Historical Society
Disease was a far more common killer than battlefield injuries during the war.
On Nov. 2, 1863, Pvt. John N. Scott of Co. G, Maine 13th Infantry, wrote to Shepley seeking his help getting a furlough to visit his wife in Maine, who was quite ill with consumption and not expected to live. Scott also was ill and in St. James Hospital in New Orleans.
Shepley, on a visit to Maine earlier in the fall, had spoken with Scott's wife about the furlough.
Scott was 30 years old and living in Augusta when he enlisted in January 1862. He died of his illness at the end of November, less than a month after writing the letter.
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