Raynors HCA 2016-10
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/21/2016
War-date Union soldier's letter, 3pp. 8vo., written by Pvt. Robert Henry Greenfield, Co. I, 130th New York Vols., "Camp Suffolk, Va.," May 8, 1863, to his wife, in part: "…we have got back to camp again. There is no Rebels around here now. Only them that desert and come in our lines. There has a great many of them deserted when the Rebels left here. It is supposed that they have gone back to Fredericksburg to fight Hooker. Some of the deserters that come in said that Suffolk was better fortified then they supposed…and that there was more forces here than they had been informed…they lost a grant many men…I and three…of our boys crossed the Nansemond River yesterday and went over their old camp grounds. We found many graves where they had burried their dead. Our big cannon threw shell and solid shot in their camps…they did not have much to eat…we saw many places where our shell had struck. Some places the ground was torn up for three or four rods. Trees torn down and horses full of holes where our shells struck them. We picked up some of the Rebel's old letters and read them…the South seem to think that they are in the right and they are fighting for their rights and their freedom. This I saw in their letters. It seems that they are anxious to have this war close as well as we, but they say they want out of the Union worth the intension of establishing a Union of their own…there will be a great deal of blood shed before they carry out their design. Jeff Davis has promised them that if they fight well that they can al go home by the first of July…but I am afraid that many of them will go to their long homes by that time…Robert H. Greenfield." VG
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