2025-01 Raynors Historical Collectible Auctions
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/25/2025
A Confederate soldier’s 5pp. letter written by James K. Lewis who enlisted 5/5/1861 into NC 16th Infantry. Lewis was killed in action 7/1//1863 at Gettysburg. Datelined Ashby’s Gap Va., Sept. 7th ‘62. In large part, “Although I am so unwell I can scarcely write at all, I will try to pen you a few lines and send by the first opportunity. ... I see some Courier or wounded Cavalryman on his way South that I can send a letter to the nearest mail line. We have no help from the army. After I wrote to you before, below Orange Co., Va. just after the battle of Cedar Run, we had whipped them badly there and then fell back. I suppose to get them to follow us, but they didn't do it and in a few days we started after them again. ... We had a Cavalry fight at Rapidan, took Pope's quarters, his horse and all his papers & his staff & would have got him, but he knew what would become of him if taken and ran, took the bushes and got away. We then came on to the Rappahannock and had a severe artillery fight all day. They tried to destroy the bridge and our artillery kept them back, but while the artillery was firing on them, we left and tried to get in behind them by crossing higher up & at last got in their rear at Manassas. We lay in fair range of their guns at Waterloo on the Rappahannock and the shot & shell flew over us in a perfect shower, sometimes bursting right over us, but the list of casualties was small considering the number of shells thrown. One poor fellow in Co. G. was lying sick, close by me & I saw a spent ball coming, big as my head & called to him to look out. He looked up and screamed before it struck him but didn't try to get out of the way and it struck his arm, tore it off above the elbow and shocked his heart & liver so badly, the surgeon said he was obliged to die. If a man has presence of mind enough, he can see the balls and dodge them when they come from a distance. I stood up all the time and depended on dodging them. Some of them fell in 3 ft. of me. ... Our Division crossed the river next day, but the enemy were running away as usual, but after hard marching got behind them at Manassas; destroyed over 100 cars loaded with commissary stores & clothing & took a quartermaster general who said the money to pay off Pope's army for 3 months was on the train and burned up with the rest. Our troops then took the same position at Bull Run that the Yankees had last year, and the Yankees had to advance the same way that our men did in the other Bull Run fight. After one of the hardest battles ever fought, the enemy was completely whipped. Our own army was terribly cut up, but the Yankee army was ruined. The New York Zouaves charged the Texans of Hood's Brigade & no more than 80 ever got away, all killed or wounded. ...The Yankees knew they were hemmed in and had to fight or die and tried to break our lines by charges pouring one brigade after another on as fast as they could but they wouldn't do. They found our men as good at standing a charge as they were at charging. One Regt. charged the 21st Ga, and was about to lock bayonets with them. The Georgians were on a Rocky hill side and when they saw the Zouaves getting so close with their long saber bayonets, I suppose they preferred a rock fight and began to shower the flint rocks among them so fast the Yankees ran off. One who was engaged in burying the dead said there were many a one of them lying there with their skulls mashed in by rocks. I don't know where the division is now exactly. Jackson is across the Potomac & it is said Hill is crossing, but I don't know. I was too sick to keep up and was ordered to stay behind with the wagons, but when they started to move, they left me 40 miles behind them. They stopped and stayed 3 days at Aldie and I met them at Middleburg coming back to Upperville on their way to Ashby's Gap in the Blue Ridge 20 miles from Winchester. I am now in 4 miles of the Valley of Va. ... Soon as I get better I am going to follow the division & try to join them in Maryland. I was in a few miles of the line the other day but didn't know the position of our men & the enemy & was afraid to go on for fear I might join the wrong crowd. ....”
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