Autograph letter signed by William Carlton "Carl" Ireland, Co. D, 44th Massachusetts Infantry. In Camp, New Berne, [North Carolina], 2 & 3 April 1863. 10 pages, 4to. Numbered 36, pages appear to be excised from a bound notebook. 

William Carleton Ireland was a 20-year-old student when he enlisted on 29 August 1862 as a private into Company D of the 44th Massachusetts Infantry. He was a meticulous letter writer, numbering his correspondence as well as those he received from his parents. His long letter includes a multitude of details of his enlistment and more. 

He opens with a discussion of local engagements: "General Foster is at Washington [North Carolina] and this will encourage our boys very much and by their good conduct may receive another one of those high compliments so often paid our regiment. The Rebels demanded the surrender of the town and on its being refused, they sent in word for the removal of the women and children which was also refused, and the reply, "I scorn your white flags. You dare not fire a gun." Suffice it to say, the town was not surrendered, the women and children were not removed, and not a gun was fired."

Ireland continues with a brief report of the blockade: "Yesterday all was quiet in the town and by their blockade being broken, the Rebels will no doubt give it up as a bad job! Today no firing has been heard. Some of our best gunboats are there and reinforcements in great numbers can be thrown down from Plymouth if necessary." 

In reference to Thomas Greely Stevenson (1836-1864) and his troops, he writes: "It must be pleasant for the 'abolition General' to know, as he must, the feeling of his soldiers towards him. 

Despite a very positive outlook, he divulges his thoughts on the Draft, or rather the lack thereof: "Can you see the policy in not ordering the Draft, at once? What can the President be thinking of? It will take three months at least to get raw militia into the field in fighting trim. Take this Department for instance. There are something like eight thousand 9-months troops including five Massachusetts regiments whose time is up on the 1st to the last of June and who will all be taken from the Corps. More troops of course must be sent to take our places where are they to come from? Certainly not from Virginia! But I must practice what I preach, and not criticize the Government authorities!"

Ireland lived in Boston after the war and was very active in GAR Post #113 (Edward W. Kinsley), serving in the leadership, including as Post Commander. Though his regiment was not engaged in the headliner battles, he must have been left with emotional scars beyond the battlefield. He suffered a bout of mental instability in the mid-1870s, which caused him to wander out of state before being found and returned to Boston. Like so many other veterans of war, Williams took his own life in 1895. 

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