Excerpts from a letter home
by Issac Barrick, Company H, Third Regt. Minnesota Infantry Vols.
Nashville, Tennessee, July the 20th, 1862
Background: Mr. Barrick wrote this while in Nashville awaiting exchange after being paroled following the capture of most of the Third Minnesota at Murfreesboro, Tennessee by General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Note: The punctuation (or lack of it) is printed as found in the original letter in the files of the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. I have put in extra spaces to make the letter a bit more readable.
“I could have made my escape after the second charge on our little band and no doubt would have done so if the infernal rebels had not lodged a spent ball in my right leg just above the knee not injuring me but making me mad so that I knew no fear and was determined to fight them to the last which I did until I was completely surrounded and overpowered 2 balls struck my cloths one through my coat tail and one through my pants leg doing me no harm and several passing in close proximity to my ears – but the worst trick they were guilty of was one of them shooting at me after I was a prisoner and disarmed.”
“I hope they will exchange us soon for I want one more pull at the accursed fiends for I can shoot them with as much coolness As I would go into the woods and shoot squirrels.”
Issac Barrick was promoted from Private to Corporal, but died on August 19, 1863, probably of malaria, at Helena, Arkansas.
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