Battle of Cold Harbor Battle Letter

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/10/2013

A great war-date Union soldier's battle letter, 4pp. 8vo., written by Corp. Marshall P. Wood, Co. I, 9th New Hampshire Vols., "Mechanicsville, Va., June 8, 1864" concerning the battle of Bethesda Church near Cold Harbor, in small part: "…all is quite except the pickets…the fighting still goes on…some days the fighting is great deal harder than others…yesterday the rebs tried very hard to flank us…but they did not make out much…we fell back to our right and the rebs thought they could flank us by coming round on our right. They came right into our lines…but they fell back last night…we have been to work all day making our breast works stronger…it is rather tough to go right up in plain sight with nothing to defend us with [while] the rebs lay behind their works and fire at us…the boys say that they will not do it much more…we only stack about 220 guns in the Regt. We have lost…260 men…we had 4…wounded yesterday while on picket …Geo. W. Allen…was shot through the arm…we have not begun to fight yet…we are a number of miles from [Richmond] …we do not get but 3 or 4 hours out of 24 to sleep…we have to keep moving about…most always in the night…so they will not see us. Our pickets…is not more than 7 or 8 rods apart…we had a pretty hard fight…a week ago today [Cold Harbor, June 1]…our forces fell back out of our works…the rebs was flanking us on our right. As we fell back…they come right after us. We flew round and got into position as fast as we could…our Brig was put…on the extreme right and built up a breast work in quick time. Skirmishers was sent out…Geo. J. Allen…came in wounded with a ball throughout his left lung…the Doct. thought it was a mortal wound. The ball went clear through him…the next day [June 3] was the hottest. Our forces advanced on them and had to build breast works right in sight of them. They wound[ed] and killed a lot of our men…we supported a battery…when morning came there was no rebs to be found only some wounded ones and a lot of dead horses…[there were] between 30 or 40 all in one place and they said that the woods was full of them. Our boys got a lot of stuff at the houses. There was two thousand dollars in gold found buried…and at an other house there was a bag full of silver quarters and half dollars found in the garden…Thomas…was wounded pretty bad in the leg…". The original stamped transmittal cover is also included. VG

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