Raynor HCA 2014-01
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/30/2014
A good war-date Union soldier's letter, 3pp. 8vo., written by Pvt. Thomas Landers, Co. D, 16th Mass. Vols., Camp Huger, Suffolk, Va., May 21, 1862, in part: "…this is the meanest damned hole I have seen. It is hotter than hell…snakes of every description. It is full of nig-ers and the whites hate us like hell, but damn them…the rebels heard we were coming and left…as they did at Norfolk. My company was on picket guard yesterday and there was a northern man came over the lines to get a pass…he lived about half a mile from where we were stationed. He was a good Union man but his wife and her father and mother were against him…he went and got his protection from our colonel and went home. The next morning…the father in law came over…and told us a hell of a story as how the young man was whipping his wife…some pitied the old man's daughter, some pittied to old man devil and the captain sent three men, I was one…with him to his house and instead of seeing him flogging his wife. He was laid in bed, his clothes all on as dead as hell. He had probably laid down to have a nap when his wife took the axe and chopped the top of his head clear off and then cut his throat with a butchers knife…we have got a guard all round the house…we were a good mind to shoot all of them…the folks say it is a common thing around this cursed hole. We are ten miles from the line of North Carolina…we are not far from the dismal swamp…the water is very poor…". VG with minor spotting, else VG
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