George W. Hoel, Company C
Letter: Near Murfreesboro, January 12, 1863

This 1863 letter of George Hoel is to his sister Amy and her husband Isaac Anderson. It was written shortly after the Battle of Stones River, which was fought on December 31, 1862 and the first days of 1863. The letter is first presented with changes in punctuation and spelling, for ease of reading, and then, with copies of the letter itself, and exact transcription of it.

[Page 1]. Camp near Murfreesboro Tennessee January the 12, 1863 Dear brother and sister it is with pleshure that I take my pen in my hand to let you no that I am in modest helth at this time and hope that those few lines will find you all well at this time I have locked a long time locked in vain I thought I wood rites you a letter to see if i could not hear from you I rote to G. W. Anderson some time a go but never got a answer tha was then at the Holm... springs [Page 4]. oure loss was ten thousand kild wounded and mising thare loss was a good deal more thare was 3 of our men wounded and 2 kiled won was Thomas Barns from beaver the other fred camp near bunkum I till you when the batle was over we was pretty well tired and we have got a nice camp and got our nap sacks and blankets a gin I would likes to com home and see you all very much we do not no what we will do yet our hol berg ade wont mor than make a reigment now write as soon as you give my love to the children G W Hoel to Isack Anderson and Amy Anderson god by to you all

[Page 2]. Well I will try to give you a sketch of oure trip we left Camp Sheridan on the 25 and reached thare pickets lines and drove them in and then we went in to camp we had som skirmeshing every day whil we was on the road we was very tird and it was a raining and we had no blankets nor we dar not have any fire the next morning we had to start to oure days woork with out anything to eat for we had non oure teams had not com up yet the balter raged all day it stopped a bout sundown then we fell back on the field and not much to brag of we got nothing to eat that night [Page 3]. The rebels had took all of oure teames and burnt our provition so we had to go to the field hungry that was the hardest days fite that ever [?] the fite lasted till the third day of the year this was 5 days fiting on newyears day 16 of our compmee with the rest of them out as skirmishers in advance we took 85 privates and one lutenant prisoners I tell you the shots com like hail a round us when I sied trees had them safe then I jumped be hind a tree and tha shot teen shots in the tree and I shot as many at them then I thought I wood git back to the rest, you had out to have seene me run and doge

Sources and Notes:
Letter scans and biographical information, courtesy of Peter and Margaret (Anderson) Knoess. Margaret is from one of the descendant Hoel lines, and she transcribed the letter.

The episode that Hoel recounts regarding the capture of 80 plus Confederate soldiers at Stones River is the same referred to in the quoted biographical sketch of Albert Eads, lieutenant of Hoel's Company C. Both Hoel, writing ten days after the episode, and Eads, remembering it decades later, set the number of Company C men at sixteen. It was not the kind of thing one would forget.

Thomas Barnes and Fred Camp both enlisted at Middleport in Iroquois County, as did Hoel. They were from the towns Hoel named, Beaver and Bunkum. Thomas Barnes was killed in the fighting at Stones River/Murfreesboro. Hoel writes only of casualties in his company, Company C.

The G. W. Anderson to whom Hoel refers was his nephew, the son of Isaac and Amy Anderson. G. W. Anderson was a member of the Seventy-Sixth Illinois Infantry, which was active around Holly Springs, Mississippi at the end of 1862, the period of time during which Van Dorn's cavalry captured Grant's trains.