Autograph letter signed by John T. Greene to James Harris. Camp DuPont, 14 January 1862. 2 pages, 4to. 

A soldier's letter with remarkable and explicit content. 

The author, John T. Greene, opens with news of an accident he suffered: "I hope this to find you well, I can't say that I am for I got thrown from a Caisson and bust both feet and one knee about five weeks ago and have not got quite well yet. Am some lame but am not sick of a soldier's life yet. I can fight if I get a chance, we will fetch them yet I think we are slow but sure."

The letter continues with an extraordinary passage written about sex in camp. While Green makes use of metaphor, he is also astonishingly direct in a description of homosexual sex: "We feel pretty stiff we would like to get limbered up. Women are scarce here mostly black at that. Smoked meat is good but we would like to have a change. Jerry won't fuck n----ers. He says he ain't touched anything since he came from home. He says he would like to come home and try Em Asstin, but I guess he will have to take up with black. I slept with Jerry he said I like to get it into his arse. Arsehole is better then no hole. Elder Green said I wish you could have been with us when we came across the sound there was six or seven whores on board."

After closing, Green concludes the letter with a postscript, continuing the explicit theme of the letter, including a small but pornographic drawing: "Write all about the Girls and the Schools and how you like your teacher. don't show this Jim will you if you won't I write you a better one the next time. Cunt [drawing] black at that. Tell the girls [we'll] come home and sponge their pieces one of these days."

John T. Greene (1834-1863, alt. Green) was a schoolteacher in Coventry, Rhode Island, who enlisted in Battery D of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery on 4 September 1861. Green wrote this letter while the regiment was engaged in the Defenses of Washington and before they moved into Virginia and heavy battle. 1862 brought heavy action with the regiment engaging at the Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. In early 1863, Greene caught the measles and died of disease at Newport News on March 6th. 

Here, he writes to a teenage neighbor who may have been a former student or possibly even cousin, James Greene Harris (1844-1868). Additionally, Greene references "Em Asstin" which may be Emily C. Austen (1845-1918), also of Coventry, Rhode Island, and an age-contemporary of James. It is unclear if the writing of her surname is an unintentional misspelling or a deliberate lewd pun. By 1870, she was working as a school teacher in Coventry, perhaps even taking Greene's position. 

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