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-<figure label>
+LeClear Family Letters, 1862-1863, 1864, Howard County Historical Society
-{{:{{ :93rd_nysm:leclear_letters_6.jpg?600 |img}}
-<caption>LeClear Family Letters, 1862-1863, 1864, Howard County Historical Society</caption>
+Ellicotts Mills aug. 31 [1864]
-</figure>
+Dear Carrie,
+Having been guarding a lot of negro conscripts for the last three hours I take this
+opportunity to relieve my mind of the strain the responsibility of having them under my
+care has occasioned by taking a little while with you. You know that it is always said by
+the proslavery people in our state that all this talk about whipping slaves was "bosh" but
+it is no such thing for I was talking with one of the boys around here last night about it
+and says that he has often seen them tied up by their thumbs so that their toes would
+just touch the floor and then cowhided with a whip that would make the skin burst open
+at every stroke just as you will see the skin of an apple burst when it is baking. And
+then one of the Negroes told me that he had been a slave and showed me the marks on
+his back of the whip. He says if the master happens to a bad one he will lash them
+in that way from head to heels and turn them round and do the same on their breasts.
+That is the way they christianize their niggers. And as for the love the slaves to
+his masters that is another of their lies. There is a man out here by the name of Carroll
+who had in the first place about five hundred men slaves and now he has not five left
+for they have all enlisted in the army, a nice specimen of their love isent to enlist in a
+month or six weeks after having the chance.
+You say that you would think that time would pass heavily on my hands, on the
+contrary I never knew it to pass so quickly for we are just busy enough now in preparing
+for the draft to keep us from what you could call idleness. And if we happen to have
+nothing to do for a while we go up to the railroad a mile or so and get all the fox grapes
+we want or up the turnpike after apples or peaches for the people out here are either
+very loyal or else are afraid of us for all we have to do is to say that we want such and
+such a thing and it is given, I rather think it is their patriotism for they will give them to me when I am along as quick as when there is a crowd along.
+I cant see how you manage to live with so many musquitoes around especially, if
+it is at all warm. I hardly think you could find as many as you sent me in this part of Md.
+It is getting cold here now too, so that a blanket wrapped close around you isent a bad
+thing at night, and I think that by the time we are ready to go home we will find it about
+the thing to sleep with our clothes on. In a week from tomorrow our time will be half out
+I tell you it don't seem long now before we will be home. But then being with Reg. we
+may be detained a week or two beyond our time. Please tell Ed and Helen that
+answer their letters tomorrow as I only received them last night.
+From your loving brother, \\
+Louis LeClear
+{{ :93rd_nysm:leclear_letters_6.jpg?linkonly|}}
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Howard County, MD in the Civil War

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