Letter from Assistant Surgeon J. F. Shaffner, Thirty-third Regiment North Carolina Troops, to His Fiancée
Camp Hardee, Manassas Junction
Sept. 1, 1861
My dear Miss Carrie:
You have probably heard now of my safe arrival at this Camp. . . . I reached here on Friday noon, and although I found very many sick, the nature of the diseases is not as malignant as I had been led to fear. Typhoid is very prevalent and a large percentage die. Measles are very frequent from the sequelae of which a great many are suffering. There are besides cases of Jaundice, digestive derangement, Bronchitis &c., but these always yield to judicious treatment. Our present location is upon a hill or rather knoll in a fine clover field distant some 8 miles N. West of the Junction, where we have reason to believe most of the men will gradually return to a normal condition.
