The letters of Orrin Holmes

Orrin Holmes was an ancester of my wife's. He volunteered in the 29th Massachusetts Regiment at the beginning of the Civil War and was in the army until his death at the breakout of Petersburg shortly before Lee surrendered. In that time he wrote home fairly regularly.

The letters posted here are excerpts from the originals and not their entire text. These letters were retyped in an edited format for a church function early in the 20th century. At that time much of the personal communication between Orrin and his family was edited out. The original letters were lost.

Copies of the edited letters managed to survive down through the family generations.  The original letters have been lost to time but these partial essays survive.

Orrin was an educated young man with sly observations, a sense of humor  and a commitment which matures over the years. Inside these letters you'll find his humor and concern, insight and caring and a view of the war seen from the inside, not like a movie at all.