Raynors HCA 2015-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/3/2015
Great war-date Union soldier's letter, 8pp. 8vo., written by Pvt. Norman J. Ray, Co. A, 33rd Mass. Vols., Camp near Falmouth, Va., Dec. 20, 1862, in part: "…I am afraid you do not think of me quite as often as I think of home…when I wrote you last we were in Thoroughfare Gap, since that time we have been moving round considerable…we left the Gap on the 18th of Nov…came back over the same rout that we went up on…just got our 2nd camp fixed up…when we got orders to march…we were moving…Sigel's Corps containing 38,000 men, a part of them under the command of Gen. Slocum. We marched…10 or 12 miles a day and that was further than the wagons train could move…on the 3rd days march they did not come up with us…mud any quantity to suit, suited most [all] too well. Put your boot in it and…look out or off would come the sole…there was one horse that the men had to shove the mud away from his foot and pry it up with a spade…he could not lift it…Dumfries [is a] small place containing court house & jail also one hotel. Looked more like Mass. than any building I have seen since we left Alexandria. The next one was called Stafford that also containing Court house & jail…arrived within one & one half mile of Falmouth the 15th …went to the right flank of the army that is now before Fredericksburg…we passed heaps of winter quarters used by the Johny Rebs last winter. When we crossed Occuquan River at Wolf Run Shoals there was 2 forts & a long string of rifle pits. If they had been maned…some of us would have got hurt…the 33rd was rear guard. We put a blue pill in or guns expecting to have a brush with Stuart's Cavalry for that morning they had robbed a sutler on the same road we were on…Falmouth is on this side of the Rappahannock & Fredericksburg on the other. The bombarding of the place by our army we heard very plain…some think that the Rebs are evacuating F. as we can hear their cars running nights…Fort Darling has been taken by Banks, if so Richmond is ours and if that is so no wonder they are retreating…if they will only get out from behind their breastworks…their pickets are one side of the river and ours on the other, both pickets struck arms and set down before their fires to keep warm. The Rebs say that if the 2 armies could come together they would settle this trouble in 2 hours-shake hands, take a drink of whiskey and go home. I saw a man today that went over the river with a flag of truce and one of the Rebs asked him if he was going to Richmond and he answered yes. When the Reb told him he would find a Stonewall, 2 Hills & a Longstreet to pass over before he got there…write often, Norman." Also included is a great 2pp. oblong 8vo. letter sheet on which Ray draws a detailed map of the trop positions at Fredericksburg. Drawn from the perspective of the Union side, positions of "Rebel Troops commanded by Stonewall Jackson" appear in the upper right, Union assault positioned are noted as an "open plain called Burnside's Slaughter House" while the "City of Fredericksburg" appears behind those bloody fields. With other positions carefully noted Ray's letter continues, in part: " Sunday P. M. 21st, I herewith give you a description (taken on the spot by our special artist now with Sigel's Corps) of how things look through a glass…it will give you a slight understanding of how things look…it looks to me that if we were in this place that they could not drive us out. You speak…that Sigel has retreated with some loss…we have not had any fight…his loss may be in mules & horse for they lay around here…by the road side quite thick…from your brother, Norman." The original transmittal cover is included. VG.
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