University of Virginia Library

Apparently the family patriarch James Brooks asked his neighbor Schyler Trible to travel to Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Trible's mission was to find out about the welfare of Charles Brooks and "John," who appears to be Charles' cousin John D. Brooks (see William Brooks' letter of July 8, 1861). Trible arrived in Richmond on Monday, June 30, the fifth day of the Seven Days Battle, a series of battles around Richmond between Union General McClellan's army and Confederate troops under the command of Lee and Jackson Because the battles were going on around Richmond when Trible was writing, he was understandably concerned about the welfare of John and Charles Brooks, but unable to discover much about them in the confusion (McPherson, 70-73).

The First Conscription Act allowed a conscripted (drafted) man to hire a substitute to serve his term. This provision produced much division and tension between the poor and the wealthy. Often, a substitute would desert a day after appearing in camp, then agree to substitute for someone else (Current, vol. 1, 396-99).

During the Seven Days Battle, the Confederates lost 20,141 men, while the Federal army lost 15,489 (McPherson, 72). The Fourth Virginia suffered losses of 8 killed and 28 wounded (Robertson, 4th Virginia Infantry, 16).

As a result of the Seven Days campaign, the Confederates prevented McClellan from capturing Richmond, but McClellan succeeded in moving his base of operations from the York river to the James (Wallace, 35).

According to the 1860 Census of Augusta County, Schyler Trible, who was thirty-one in 1860, lived with the farmer Samuel Steele on land close to the Brooks family farm.