ALS, four pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 12.5, October 17, 1862. Letter to his sister, following his discharge at Annapolis on October 13, 1862. In part: "How thankfull I am that my life has been spared to again set for on 'the land of the free,' for I was not contented to have my bones not in the cursed soil of South Carolina, but ah! there is many a poor boy that once belonged to the Mich. 8th now sleeping there, far away from the home of their nativity, where no friendly hand will ever place a slab, or plant a flower above their lonely graves, but they died a soldier's death, and I suppose the world will call it honorable…I will give you a short history of what has passed since I have been a prisoner…At daylight we charged the Rebel battery at Secessionville, which was about a mile and a half from our camp, the result of which no doubt you have heard long ere this. I was wounded in the first charge, the ball passing close under my left arm. I did not fall, but held myself up with my gun…I soon had to lie down and take what might follow. I bled so much from that wound alone that fingers were completely numb and dead…every time I would breathe the wind would come wheezing from my side. The balls flew about us as thick as hail, and I had not lain there long, before another ball went slam through my left foot shattering the bones very badly…I had bled so much that I was perfectly insensible to pain…Long after the battle was over the Rebels carried me into the Fort (or more properly behind their entrenchments) and laid me down on the cold wet ground, in hopes that I would die there without putting them to any further trouble."
Cole was brought to a jail-turned-hospital, where he was tended to by Union volunteers allowed to treat the wounded soldiers: "Had it not been for the Union people who gained admittance we should have all suffered terribly and I am certain that I should never have been here, one thing I will say God bless the Union people that were so kind to us while there. The Sisters of Mercy especially. They came to see us everybody…I was sent to Columbia prison, having been in Charleston nearly three months, I had no blanket…luckily for me, I had to stay there only about three weeks before I was sent to Richmond to be exchanged." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
