Raynors HCA 2020-02
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/27/2020
War-date Union soldier Autograph Letter Signed, 4pp. octavo, Gurreny's Station on the Richmond & Fredericksburg RR, Virginia, May 5, 1863, and reads in part: "..The last I wrote you was a line I sent Sab. morning by a surgeon who was paroled , stating merely that I was a prisoner & unwounded. I don't like it much but I really couldn't help it. Our brigade (Col. Carrol's) charged the enemy Sab morning early drove them through a thick wood, went too far so as to expose them to a very severe flank fire of artillery. I was ordered after a while to go to the front & halt the line which was something more than half a mile long. I ran & shouted & plunged about in that thicket (we had to leave our horses on the open ground) till I had halted a good part of the line & drawn them up again in some order & then returned to report to the commander. Picked up a good many prisoners as I went along I sent them on in charge of slightly wounded men 3 or 4 in a squad till I had started perhaps 20 in all & then having a corpule in my own charge pushed up rapidly to the rear as I supposed, to Col. Carrol, but I must have turned a little to my right in going back, or more likely the enemy had come in our flank for the first I knew I came through a thicket of bushes right on to at least a regiment of the enemy lying behind a long line of rifle pits which they had taken from us. I never was more thunderstruck in my life. They were not 15 feet off. Every man with a gun in his hand & I with only a pistol in mine & none of our men in sight. One of the prisoners I had taken turned round to me laughing said 'Well captain, things is different from the way they was. I reckon you'r my prisoner now.' Things was different with a vegence. I stood for fully 3 minutes with my cocked pistol in my hand facing the crowd & deciding what was best to be done. Finally I turned to an officer nearest to me & said 'well boys I really dont see how I am getting to capture this small crowd of yours all alone so I cave. They took my sword & pistol & sent me to the rear, but treated me on the whole very courtesly. We were marched some 1700 of us when we were gathered together on to Spotsylvania Court House, some 10 miles the first day...Hope we will soon be paroled & get back from this unexpected trip to the Confederate capital...." Fine condition.
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