82nd Pennsylvania Infantry

Item LTR-8299

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 4 pages, written in period ink.


In camp near Bell Plain Landing,
55 miles below Washington, and
9 miles from Fredericksburg

May 15th 1864

Friend Cal,

You see from the upper works of this article that we have moved our camp from Johnson’s Island.

We left the Island on the ninth inst. and arrived in Washington the thirteenth where we halted long enough to get bread and coffee and then took a boat for this place, which is now used as a depot for prisoners and supplies to the Army. There are now about 9,000 prisoners here and more are expected from the front. I understand that 164 officers and 500 privates were sent to Washington on the day we came here.

They have been doing a big job of slaughtering at the front, the result of which you probably know better than I.

The wounded are coming in here day and night and are being sent to Washington and other places. The three regiments (65, 67 and 122 NY) of this brigade which left the Island about three weeks before we did, are reduced by killed, wounded, and prisoners to less than 400. General Shaler, the commander of this brigade, is reported to have been wounded and taken prisoner. General Sedgewick, commander of the 6th Corps, is killed. The road from Fredericksburg to this place has been lined with such of the wounded as can walk since we came here. All of the ambulances and the whole supply train on their return from the battlefield are loaded with wounded. A wounded sergeant of the 65th New York just stopped here. He says out of the three regiments mentioned, they could muster but 260 men for duty when he was wounded. What were taken prisoners were wounded. Both the reb prisoners and our men say there never has been anything like such fighting since the war commenced. The color sergeant of the 65th had 18 balls shot through him, so the men state.

I expect we will soon be relieved from here and then most likely we will go down to the scene of action. As all mail communication is cut off at present, this may be the last letter I can send for a while. If you see any of our folks, just tell them I am “all right” and where I am.

I wrote to them but it may not reach them or this you, for I will have to send them to Washington by some civilian.

No more at present. My respects to the folks in general.

Yours truly,

D. J. Taft