Raynor HCA 2013-01
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/10/2013
Andrews Arrives At City Point & Sets Up Camp Near General Grant A good war-date Union officer's letter, 4pp. 8vo., written by 2nd Lt. John T. Andrews, Co. D, 179th New York Vols, "City Point, Va., Sixteen miles from Petersburg, October 6, 1864," written on U. S. Christian Commission stationery, in part: "…I left Elmira in company with Chaplain Taft…we got aboard the U. S. Mail Steamer Adelaide for Fortress Monroe…here I took breakfast…the steak was well flavored with dirt and ashes and everything smelt so niggery…we took the US Steamer Webster for City Point. The country all along the James is beautiful but desolate. There are no villages-no dwellings and as we near City Point the few barns we see are stripped of their boards…found comfortable quarters with the Christian Commission…they furnished us with a good supper, after which we attended a prayer meeting in their Chapel tent. There were none but soldiers present, and with tearful eyes and trembling voices they prayed for the dear ones at home and asked to be spared to them, it aroused a sympathetic feeling in my own heart and completely broke me down. Prof. Jackson of Union said 'Military men never pray' but I find soldiers can pray…we went back to a negro prayer meeting, and a stranger sight I never witnessed…in a few minutes more I shall have to go to 'the front'…there are very strong fortifications all around this point…Gen. Grant's Head Quarters are but a few rods from where I am writing and one of the C. C. 's agents just came in saying 'I have just shaken hands with Gen. Grant'…". Also included is the letter's original transmittal cover, VG
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