Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Benjamin Franklin BROOMELL
This is a clipping from the Chester Co. Historical Society. There is no date- it was from the Wilmington Morning News July 9, no year given. It is a column written by W.Emerson Wilson. One edge is obscured by adjoining clipppings so you will heave to fill in some words.
BROOMELLS FARED BETTER THAN ...
The devastation which war can bring to a peaceful countryside is vividly described in a Civil War letter recently discovered by a Delaware man. The letter was written by Pvt. Benjamin F. Broomell of Company B, Col. Josiah Harlan's Regiment of Pennsylvania Light Cavalry. It was found between the
leaves of an old book, one of a number given to George Broomell of 2133 Barr Road, Delpark Manor, as part of a family bequest. The soldier was the great-grandfather of Broomell.
It was written from Balls Cross Roads, Va. on Nov. 14, 1861. This area was just across the Potomac River in Virginia, not far from Ball's Bluff where the Union forces had suffered a defeat the month before the letter was written.
"There is not one house in this part of the country that is worth anything,' the soldier wrote to his wife, 'all the best of them have been burnt down. What is left the Army had for auspittles (hospitals). There is not one parcel of fence to be seen in the whole neighborhood because all have been burnt for camp
fires. The timber has all been cut down to get sites to shoot the cannon. They lay one tree on top of another between the stumps which are left about three feet high.
"There is not a mill in this or the next county, all have been burned down to keep the rebels from getting any flour. "It would be something of a curiosity to see one woman, one chicken or a dog, a pig, a sheep, or anything but men. We expect to leave this place in a day or two. The rebels have gone out of sight of us."
Broomell then tells of having taken a long ride through the area on the preceding Sunday and of how impressed he was by the large number of regiments scattered everywhere. He saw and chatted with some men from his home in Upper Oxford Township of Chester County who were serving with the infantry. Like most soldiers of any war, Broomell was optimistic rather than fire-eating.
He wrote:
"I don't think we will see much fighting. We think the war is near to a close and that we will all be home again by Christmas."
Just how he reached that conclusion when in November, 1861, everything seemed to indicate a long, hard war is difficult to see now. And, like most soldiers, he was complaining that he hadn't been paid since he joined the army. He added that he had only five cents left and that he was holding onto that.
Included with the letter is a certificate which Broomell urged his wife to take good care of because it could be used later "to draw my bounty either in money or land."
The certificate reads:
"I do certify that Benjamin F. Broomell of Upper Oxford Township Chester County was mustered into the service of the United States on the second day of October, 1861, as a private in Company B., Col. Josiah Harlan's Regiment of Light Cavalry." It is signed by W. DeWee... Roberts,lieutenant commanding company B[?]... and countersigned by Col. Harlan.
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