Transcription
Camp of 105th Ill Vol Aug. 7th
Dear Brother,
I received your welcome letter dated July 14th yesterday. You can imagine with what pleasure I read your letter because I have been waiting for a letter for the last 4 weeks. Your last letter to me, that I received was from Matagorda Island (Tx) dated May 1st. Since I wrote to you last we have had quite a fuss with the Rebels, I think it is useless though for me to write anything of the general engagements here because you can get the news in the papers, better as I can write them. I suppose you have read everything about Hooker’s fight at Peach Tree Creek on the 20th of July. I saw your letter was addressed yet to the 11th A. C. perhaps ere this reaches you, you will know that the 11th and 12th Corps have been consollidated into the 20th Corps under Gen. Hooker our is the 3rd Division now in command of Gen. Ward but when organized it was under Maj. Gen. Butterfield our Re. is in the 1st Brig. Gen Wards old Brig, it is generally named it is now commanded by Col. Ben Harrison of the 70th Ind. To come back where I started with Hooker’s fight, our Brig. had a hand in it and I believe did as much execution and more than any other Brig. in our Corps. it was the first fight that we had with the rebels on the open field without breastworks on either side. I can assure you it was quite a different thing from what it was at Resaca (Ga.) when A. Asche was killed. Here we met them face to face on the top of a clear ridge, one side had as much chance as the other, our side having some advantage in the Artillery; while at Resaca we had to march through a dense pine thicket up a hill. Bullets, grape, and cannister whining around our heads and no enemy to be seen. There it was where poor Asche fell, shot through the head, a better soldier could hardly be found. Our Regt. was very lucky on the 20th our loss in killed and wounded was 15 our company had 2 men wounded both Sergts. H. Reinking was one of the unfortunate he was shot in the leg below the knee, the other (p. Wagner by name) was hit in the left hand. He had the first 2 fingers taken off. Our Brig. lost about 180 all told, the Div. some over 500 the Corps over 1600. The troops that were engaged besides our Corps lost about 100 men killed & wounded. The whole loss of the rebels I do not know but it must have been three times as heavy as ours. Our Corps captured 7 stands of Colors of which our Div. got 6 our Regt. got 1 of them. That fight encouraged the men a good deal, it made them feel good when the rebs skedaddled down the hill. I never saw the dead lay around as thick as they did there. Two more battles have been fought here but our Corps was not engaged in any of them, one on the 22nd of July in which Gen. McPherson commanding the Army of the Tennessee was killed. This engagement was on the extreme left of our Army, the rebs got the worst of it. The last that I know of (although it is rumored that there has been hard fighting on the right) was on the 28th J. also by the Army of the Tenn. now commanded by Gen. Howard. , there we again came out best. We are at present about 2 miles from Atlanta, the 4th Corps on the left the 20th next on the left. Pickets are very close together and fire on each other continually, there is also canonading every day. You inquire about your acquaintances what they are doing, etc. I believe all that you are acquainted with in our Regt. are at present well with the exception of Wm. Hanebuth who is in the Hospital he has been sick for about a month. Most of your acquaintances are very good.
