2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/20/2024
Union soldier's 5pp. letter written by Joseph B. Laughton who was mustered into "F" Co. NY 38th Infantry, Wounded 5/5/1862 Williamsburg, VA., and was discharged for disability on 1/7/1863 at Point Lookout, MD. Datelined , Fair Oaks,6 miles from Richmond, June 14, 1862, to his Brothers, Mother and Father. In part, "I have marched 150 miles with a heavy knapsack and 60 rounds of cartridges & 14 lb rifle ... To say nothing about marching the lead .. knowing it was sure death to fall out for no man will stop to pick you up ... We frequently pass some poor fellow dead on the road, left there ... we entered the field of battle and fought twelve hours under the hottest kind of fireing, then slept on the field and in the morning cleaned up the dead, and again marched on to death or danger. ... While quietly resting from fatigue on a two day picket ... we were alarmed by the long role of heavy firing to our front, not a half mile from us. We at once fell in and were en route for the scene of action ... Lead was flying, bands playing, the wounded groaning, the living firing at one moment and falling dead the next ... it is impossible to describe the scene ... Comrade after Comrade fell dead and wounded around me, but I still live and for some purpose of God for surely He alone could save me in such a time as that. ... What would you think when talking to a man by your side, encouraging him to do his duty, to see his head cut entirely off by a passing 12 pounder and yourself covered with his blood? And then at your left another friend with a ball through his head ... I have seen men completely riddled with bullets shot 8 & 10 places and still none happened to hit me. ... To see the wounded after the battle is awful. Some with neither arm, others missing a leg, foot, arm, hand, or shot in various parts of the body, lying in every direction ... Then to see the surgeons go at their work is sickening ... slash off a limb the same as a butcher would. And then the Soldier's grave is itself horrible. A hole is dug and you are pitched in and covered up as soon as possible. ... Our loss has been 8000, the enemies 15,000. I have seen 800 buried in one trench and 63 lay dead in one pile ...."
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