Raynors HCA 2017-06
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/1/2017
A Union soldier’s letter written by “Benjamin” Wright who enlisted on 9/13/1861 as a Sergeant into "I" Co. CT 10th Infantry and was discharged on 10/17/1864. The 4 page legal size letter is datelined Morris Island, S.C. July 27th, 1863. Benjamin describes the loss of Col. Leggett who “has one leg off… shot off by a shell while on picket at the front”. After they got on picket duty “the Rebs began to shell us on Fort Sumter and Cunnings Point Battery, every 15 minutes through the night… to keep us from getting any sleep, and to prevent the working parties from doing any work… Soon after day light they opened on us from a Battery they have been building up near the city, in which they have mounted some powerful Mortars and Rifle guns… sometimes they would burst as many as six shells over our heads in a moment… they are splendid shots, how we ever escaped as we did is a miracle.” Wright’s descriptions are very vivid; one shell “struck on the side of the ditch and… covered Lieut. Marshall. Another one buried ten men so they had to be dug out.” “ I would like to have had an artist to have drawn a sketch of the scenes, are laying in the ditches and the shells bursting around us. I think we would have been taken for some sand boys or some animals that buried itself in the sand… it was the longest 24 hours I ever saw.” Benjamin goes on and talks about their Siege of Fort Sumter that is about to begin, “We have lots of guns mounted that they know nothing about, some two hundred pound Parrots... The Passaic has arrived with her 13 inch rifled guns, they are the boys that will tell…”
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