Tag Archives: casualties

15 July 1862: “…We have been compelled by the pressure of our enemies to give up more of our mother state to their brutal army.”

Item description: Letter, 15 July 1862, from Robert W. Parker of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry to his wife, Rebecca Louise Fitzhugh Walker Parker, at home in Bedford County, Va. Parker wrote of his company’s retreat from Culpeper to Rapidan Station, … Continue reading

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12 July 1862: “I myself found a Yankee in a thicket on Friday who had been shot through the lungs the previous Monday & was still alive.”

Item description: Letter, 12 July 1862, from Benjamin Lewis Blackford, in camp near Chesterfield, Va., to his mother Mary B. Blackford. Blackford, an accomplished draftsman, was at this time employed as a topographical engineer in the Confederate army. This letter … Continue reading

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8 July 1862: “The remainder will march to the cannons mouth and Stab The yankee gunners to The heart Unawed by superior numbers or the display of burnished weppons and dazling unaforms”

Item description: Letter, 8 July 1862, from William C. McClellan of the 9th Alabama Infantry to his brother, Robert Anderson McClellan, in which he described the Seven Days Battle with McClellan’s forces near Richmond. He wrote of the heavy Confederate … Continue reading

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3 July 1862: “It fell to my lot – being officer of the guard today – to give him a burial…”

Item description: Letter, 3 July 1862, from Union soldier Stephen Tippet Andrews to his beloved, Margaret (Maggie) Little. For an introduction to the correspondence between Andrews and Little, please see our post of 11 February 1862. [Transcription available below images.] … Continue reading

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2 July 1862: “It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your son John. R. Smith, a member of my company.”

Item description: Letter, 2 July 1862, from Edward M. Hardy, Captain of Company G, 6th Virginia Infantry Regiment, informing Rev. Aristides Spyker Smith (1809-1892) of the death of his son Johnathan “Johnnie” Reynolds Smith (1836-1862). Johnnie was killed on 1 … Continue reading

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22 June 1862: “Dear Parents…Well I was in the fight on the 16th & got slightly wounded in the Right Arm just below the Shoulder.”

Item description: This letter, dated 22 June 1862, was written by William Cooley to his parents in Connecticutt. A member of the Connecticutt Volunteers, Cooley recounts the horror of assaulting fixed Confederate positions near Hilton Head, South Carolina. Wounded in … Continue reading

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2 June 1862: “Peter shall be as well cared for as if the General were alive. His grief at the loss of the General is most touching & draws out the sympathies of all of us.”

Item description: Letter, dated 2 June 1862, from Louis Gourdin Young, aide-de-camp to Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew (CSA). The letter appears to be addressed to the General’s brother, William S. Pettigrew. In his message, Young delivers a report on … Continue reading

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1 April 1862: “The President does things pretty much in his own way, without consulting anyone and takes the responsibility upon himself and has give us a cabinet which is not satisfactory to the country.”

Item description: Letter, Burgess S. Gaither to Thomas Ruffin, 1 April 1862. Gaither, a Burke County, N.C., politician and member of the Confederate Congress wrote of the military disaster in which Roanoke Island was lost and the resulting investigation. He … Continue reading

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7 March 1862: “A great many bodies have been taken up and still the woods are thick with groups of graves with rudely carved boards for tombstones to show where their last remains repose.”

Item description: Letter, 7 March 1862, from Robert Stuart Finley to his fiancee, Mary A. Cabeen. Finley was a member of the 30th Illinois Infantry, a Union regiment engaged in the siege and taking of Fort Donelson on the 13th, … Continue reading

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1 September 1861: “Lewis said with regard to the Camp life that men did there what they would be ashamed to do at home.”

Item description: Entry, dated 1 September 1861, from the diary of Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball. [Transcription available below images.] Item citation: From the the Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball Diary #975-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of … Continue reading

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