Raynors 2012-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/27/2012
A nice war-date Union artillery document packet with three documents signed by Robert Bruce Ricketts, Captain of the 1st Pennsylvania Artillery, total of seven folio documents in the packet, being the "Quarterly Return of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, Received, issued and remaining on hand, in "In the field…June 1864 by R. Bruce Ricketts, Capt. 1st Reg't Pa.Lt. Lt. Arty." The time covered in this packet includes the battle of Cold Harbor Bermuda Hundred. These documents show the regiment's expenditures, condemned horses and of the loss of six, horses "killed at Cold Harbor, Va." Another six horses, "died of exhaustion caused by being almost constantly in Harness during the Campaign and being without Hay and most of the time one five (5) lbs of grain per day…". More. Ricketts' battery was - beginning on May 13, 1863 - in the third volunteer brigade of the Reserve Artillery under Captain James F. Huntington. Battery G, First Pennsylvania Light Artillery, was attached to Ricketts' battery a few weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg, on June 1, 1863. This merger was resented until gunners from Battery G were permitted to form a section of the consolidated battery. This merger took place while the army was marching north in pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia, beginning on May 15. They arrived in Gettysburg on the Taneytown Road on the morning of July 2, 1863 and replaced Capt James H. Cooper's Battery B, First Pennsylvania Light Artillery, on East Cemetery Hill about 4:00 PM. It was exposed to enfilade fire from Benner's Hill and Seminary Ridge. Around nightfall, two Confederate brigades from the division of Major General Jubal Early attacked the hill. It broke the thin Union front line at the foot of the hill in two places. In other places they were repelled. Some Confederates reached the top of the hill, and one group attacked the left of Ricketts' battery, trying to spike the guns. The fight for the guns became hand to hand, but the Confederates were unable to capture the whole battery. Eventually Union reinforcements from the II Corps brigade of Col Samuel S. Carroll drove the Confederates down hill. A monument to the battery stands in the general location of their fight. Overall VG
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