RIKERS ISLAND, Jan. 29, 1864.
SIR i must Tell you a little a bout the Camp a fairs & how thing Goes here last nite we had a mobe fite bee twixt the Clord & white But the ofesers sune stop it But if they had let the nigs goe they wood Not have benn a sun of the Eemeral Ile left here for the Colord Trupes at Rikers Island & i for my self am Just as well as Ever i was & As tuff But when i First a Rived i thought it hard but now i am Natueralised to the Camp Lif there is a Bout 2000 Colord troups here and one Ridgiment Will Leave sune that Is the 20 Ridg I thout Colord men wood not Make good Solgers but I was greatly mistaken For they are as fine as is here & learn Just as fast as the whites & More Promp & spunkey The wether is mild & warm Spring like Mine to the oneonte herald untill a Beter one or Beter ComPosed & more time i have got to bee a Coprill and will sune get to Bee a sarjant i make the Boys stand a Round as fare as my athorety.
WILLIAM C. NEWARK.
20 Ridgement.
William C. Newark lived in Broome County, NY, before the war, where he worked as a barber. In June 1860, he resided in a hotel in Binghamton. Newark volunteered for the 20th USCI in Oneonta, NY, in December 1863. The following April officers appointed the thirty-three-year-old, who was born in Tioga County, NY, corporal in Company F, 26 USCI.
After the war, Newark returned to the barbering trade. In 1865 he once again lived in Binghamton, but now with a wife and an eleven-year-old daughter. By 1870, Newark no longer lived with his family. Eliza and Virginia, along with two borders, resided in Scranton, PA, and in 1880 the widowed Eliza worked as a washerwoman who boarded with a Jennie Willet. In 1882, Eliza applied for but failed to receive a widow’s pension.
Eliza Ann Newark died of cancer on March 14, 1885. She is buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Dunmore just outside of Scranton.