Raynors HCA 2019-01
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/21/2019
War-date Union soldier Autograph Letter Signed by William Dunlap Dixon, 35th Pennsylvania Infantry, breveted brigadier general 3/13/1865, 2pp. folio, Georgetown, D.C., December 23, 1861, and reads in part: “...we were in a regular fight on last Friday at Dranesville...We were only there about fifteen minutes until the fight commenced. It lasted about one and half hours. We saw the enemy begin to give way. We had five regiments along with us but only two of them was in the engagement. Our Regiment was in it from the beginning until the ened. There was two men in our Regiment killed, and some 3 or 4 mortally wounded and about twelve not very dangerously wounded which will recover. I had one man in my Company that was mortally wounded and died in about 24 hours after the fight. It was William R. Vandyke, a sone of old Mr. Vandyke from Mercersburg, and one man slightly with a bayonet in the temple, but it only got through the skin...The enemy left about one hundred and twenty dead on the field and saw 25 wounded. Our whole loss in killed was from twelve to fifteen and about fifty wounded. The Enemy carried off the most of their wounded which was said to be heavy. We took ten prisoners. There was three of the Enemy’s Regiments in the engagement 1 South Carolina, 1 Alabama, 1 Kentucky. Also one Battery of six pieces of artillery. It was called the Cute’s Battery. We captured 3 of their Caissons they left on the field. Several of the officers that was killed among the number was Colonel Taylor of the first Kentucky Regiment, also lt. colonel...General Ord was the commander and done the work well. He held the 10 and 12 Regiments in reserve. The Regiment that was in the fight was the Bucktails, the 6th, that is the one I belong to & the 9th all from Pennsylvania...Our men are all anxious to try it again, as they whipped them so badly this time...” Fine condition. The Battle of Dranesville was a small battle during the American Civil War that took place between Confederate forces under Brigadier General J. E. B. Stuart and Union forces under Brigadier General Edward O. C. Ord on December 20, 1861, in Fairfax County, Virginia, as part of Major General George B. McClellan's operations in northern Virginia. The two forces on similar winter-time patrols encountered and engaged one another in the crossroads village of Dranesville. The battle resulted in a Union victory.
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