 | Letter to Chloe Unity Blair |  |
1863-07-11
I write you afew lines
this eavning in answer to yours of
the 23 of June which I
received to day
and you may be asured that it afford
me great pleasure to hear from you
all once more. it had bin more than
a month
sence I had herd from
home,
this leaves my self and
brother both
well. and I much hope it may reach
you in due time and find you all
injoying the best of health and all
other
blesings, we have had a verry
hard time sence I wrote to you before
both
marching and fighting to do,
we went in to
Pennsylvania and stayed
for some time and had
a hard
on the 1 day of July and continued
until the night of the 3 day, and then
both armys fel back with great
loss, we went in the 3 day and got
nearly all of our Devision killed & wounded
I hope thare was not another Devision
in Lees army that suffered the loss
that Picketts [2] did, Gen Picketts lossed every
Brigidary Gen that he caryed in the battle
too killed and one taken prisner
nearly all the officers in our brigade were
killed & wounded. we lost our Col one
of the best men in service. he was a
good offeser and he was good to his
men Thay all loved him, our
Lt Col lost one of his arms at Mal
vin Hill and got the other one seriously
wounded in the Battle the other day [3]
and wounded in the papers which will
be more correct than I could gave you.
thare was 35 men went in the battle
in our company and thay was only
15 of them cam out fit for duty,
My self & Jon come through safte are we
not luckey ah we have bin so far
thay was a ball pased through my sleeve
though it did not hurt my arm, me
and Jon came verry near being taken
prisner on the day of the battle I told
him when I saw that we were nearly
surrounded I told Jon that we would
run and try to get away from
them and we made our ascape by doing
so, while several of our boys that
was with us let the Yankees take
them.
Yankeys prisners . our Devision brought
some five or six p thousand of them
to this place, I hird that the
Yankees papers stated that thay
lost forty thousand killed at the
battle at Gettysburg, I hear of
a small battle nearly every day and
I am expecting another big battle
every day. though I don't think
thay will put our Devision in,
our brigade is on guard in this
town, the citerzens of the town
seem to be in favor of the Yankees
mostly,
to all the family and share the same
for you and write to me soon.
to your loving Cousin
to C. U. Blair
Following the battle at Gettysburg, General Lee assigned Pickett's division to escort approximately 3400 Union prisoners of war to Virginia. On July 7, the division arrived at Williamsport, Maryland, where it stayed until crossing the Potomac on July 13 (Gregory 44).
Brigadier General George Edward Pickett (1825-1875), a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Mexican War, commanded Pickett's Division of Longstreet's Corps at Gettysburg. Following Gettysburg, he assumed command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina.
On July 3, 1863, the 38th Virginia took part in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. As James Booker indicates, the assault devastated the regiment: of the 481 members of the 38th who participated in the battle, "40 were killed on the battlefield (8%); 51 were wounded (10%); and 103 were captured (21%)" (Gregory 43). In naming the Confederate officers killed or wounded during the attack, Booker might have been referring to Brigadier Generals Armistead, Kemper, and Garnett, Colonel Edward Claxton Edmonds of the 38th Virginia, and Lieutenant Colonel Whittle (Gregory 39-44).
| Letter to Chloe Unity Blair | |