Only three letters of Cornelius Hulsapple's survive, two of which are addressed to the man for whom he was substituting, W.R. Ridgway. Each of the letters provides detailed information of Hulsapple's activities.
Hulsapple's writing is typified in a passage written in March 1865. In the passage Hulsapple describes seeing a large number of deserters from Lee's Army and a flood of liberated, nearly debilitated Union prisoners marching north: "they are a sad site to look on some of them have the toes frsen [sic] off of their feet some of them without hat or coat and they say that they are diing in droves every day some of them are that starved that they would catch rats and mice and eat them and they would even kill dogs if they could catch them and eat them raw."
Hulsapple, Cornelius
Rank: Private; Corporal (1865 April 1)
Regiment: 97th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment (Paoli Guards). Co. C (1861-1865)
Service: 1864 October 27-1865 August 28
Cornelius Hulsapple entered the Paoli Guards in October, 1864, as a two-year draft substitute for W. R. Ridgway. Hulsapple seems to have relished the military life and even to have enjoyed the surrounding countryside. When he joined the 97th Pennsylvania Regiment, it was stationed in North Carolina, attached to the Army of the James under Benjamin Butler, and was involved in reducing Fort Fisher in order to seal off the port of Wilmington, N.C. According to Hulsapple, the 97th Pennsylvania played a pivotal role in Butler's failed assault on Fort Fisher in December 1864, and in its successful capture one month later. Hulsapple called the spectacular December bombardment of the fort the "nicest sight I ever saw," and provided a fine description of the destroyed fort after its fall. He was careful to tell Ridgway that he was a creditable and brave replacement: "you will never have it said that you put in a man in your place that was afraid to meet the enemy at any time or place." True to his word, Hulsapple served with the 97th Pennsylvania Infantry in North Carolina until the end of the war.
