Chiefly letters from Cusack in camps in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, addressed to Frank D. Karr, a merchant with the firm of E.A. Hayt & Co. (of 361 Broadway, New York City). Also includes letters, 26 July - 28 Sept. 1861, to Karr from Union soldier James Nelson Hyatt, in Newport News, Va., and Henry A. Carpenter in Lowell, Mass. South Carolina places represented include Folly Island, Battery Wagner on Morris Island, Beaufort, Charleston, and Coles Island, where he commented on the proximity of Union and Confederate troops, exchanges of coffee and tobacco, and ensuring punishments for soldiers caught trading with the enemy (12 and 29 Sept. 1863). Letters of the Autumn 1863 discuss the death of Cusack's sister Mary in New York, and Cusack's request that Karr re-purchase family items that Mary had turned over to an undertaker as barter payment for her burial expenses, with references to demands by Cusack's father for money and Cusack's assessment that his father had not acted as a parent to his children. (3 Oct. 1863). During the Summer of 1864, Cusack's regiment participated in its heaviest fighting since coming South: a nine-page letter (4 July 1864) discusses the 127th's role in the ill-fated attack on Ft. Johnson, part of the abortive James Island offensive, while that of 12 Aug. 1864 argues that the blame lay with the officers in command; topics discussed include the presidential election; sporting events; camp life; celebrations honoring July 4th and George Washington's birthday; supplies and sales of tobacco; work as a nurse in a military hospital in Beaufort; and following Confederate surrender, interactions with a civilians in Charleston, a city in which Cusack reports all the women were "rank Rebels" (30 May 1865).
