2021-10 Raynors HCA Live
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/15/2021
Union soldier's letter, 4pp. 8vo., written by Orderly Sergeant Charles J. Baxter, Co. F, 27th New Jersey Vols., "Camp Burnside on the Peninsula near Newport News, Feb. 18, 1863," to his family, reading, in part: "-we left our camp - February 11th, marched to Falmouth & took the cars to Acquia Creek - in the Chesapeake Bay - for the first time in my life I was out of sight of land - we had a tolerable good view of Fortress [Monroe] - I presume you have often heard of the Rip Raps in Hampton Roads - [they are] a large bed of rocks on which are several buildings & & under process of building - when the fort is completed [it] will be of considerable consequence - disembarked at Newport News - we are now encamped - along the beach - it was here that the Merrimac sunk the Congress & Cumberland & was afterwards whipped by the Monitor. The engagement between our vessels & the Rebel Imp took place quite near the shore. Very vivid accounts of the battle are given us by many who saw it. The Congress & Cumberland are still where they were first sunk. Their masts come eight or ten feet above the water. One of our new Monitors lays out in the harbor. She is exactly like the first Monitor only much larger & stronger. She carries two guns, a hundred punned rifled cannon & 4 32 pound smoothbore - Chas. J. Baxter." Light spotting, else VG.
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