6th New York Cavalry Letter on the ‘Stonewall Cemetery’

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008

Autograph Letter Signed, “Ceylon Van Volkenburgh” 4p. octavo, Winchester, Virginia, December 1, 1864, with good content on the Stonewall Confederate Cemetery, it reads in part: “...I don’t know when they will send us to the Regt. and another thing I dont care a damn...Jim Mason I haven’t seen since the 18th Oct. he was feeling well but the next morning I guess that he got up a little earlier than common when the shells came in to them. I was over the ground where they was camped and I saw where a good many of the boys out of his Co. was buried. I looked to see if Jim’s name was there but it was not, so I guess that Jim is still alive. There was plenty of cannon balls and shell laying on their camp ground. There is a Reb burying ground just over the fence back of us, there is about (1700) seventeen hundred rebs soldiers buried there. They have got little boards set up for grave stones. Three is three rebel sergeants out here now taking the names of them. Therre is plenty of reb soldiers here in the hospitals they get the same fare that our soldiers get. I wonder if our soldiers get soft bread at Richmond. They use the reb soldiers to damned weel to suit me anyway. The boys in the Regt have to eat hard tack...the 6th Corps started for Washington this morning some think that they are going to reinforce Grant. IF old Grant will do anything this fall we may get a chance to get hom in the spring...” VG.The Stonewall Confederate Cemetery is the last resting place for over 3000 Confederate soldiers who died in the fields and hospitals around Winchester, Virginia. Dedicated in 1866, it is part of the Mount Hebron cemetery complex and is the final resting place for such famous soldiers as General Turner Ashby (and his brother) and General Robert Johnson. Separated into smaller sections, one for each State, the cemetery is home to many proud monuments in addition to the remains of over 400 unknown Confederate Soldiers.

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