Henry, Josiah E. (b. 1840) to Parents

Writes that nothing important has happened since he "last wrote except the battle of Sunday. Our division was not in it, there was not much artillery firing that day but the muskets was heavy and it was kept up without easing till near two hours after dark." Now on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy; does not suppose that they will attack Richmond this week. Writes that the rebels have fired more than 100 shots since he started writing this letter. Although they have several batteries there, Henry does not know why the rebels are firing because the batteries will burst in the swamp on the left because there is nothing but water. Can see the rebels' pickets from the camp; in some places, their pickets and the enemy's pickets are only three roads apart. There is an oat field that separates them and woods on each side. The rebels were about four roads from where Henry stood last night while on picket duty. Writes that they both stood outside of the woods in plain sight of each other, which shows how closely they follow the rebels. Supposes that his parents have seen in the papers about "the 5th Vermont being shelled by three rebels' batteries." Some papers say that they were on picket duty at the time, while other papers claim that they were at Bull Run. The correspondent got the 5th Regiment mixed up a little with the 2nd Regiment; they were actually on a reconnecting expedition. The rebels fired 104 shots at them but only hit one man. They kept marching for about 100 roads, but the shells from the rebels' shotguns were coming pretty close, so they faced towards the batteries and marched down towards the narrow strip of woods and lay down so the rebels could not see them; they stayed there for ten minutes. The colonel told the captain to take all the companies to the woods where there was a little hollow area so that they could lay down and not be seen by the rebels. As soon as one company got about half way to the stopping place, the next company was to start. The first company got along very well, but the other three did not do so well because they were seen by the rebels. The rebels threw a shell right in the middle of them, another one went over their entire camp and struck the ground within five feet of the head of the colonel. Writes that they could hear the rebels coming, so they would throw themselves down and the rebels would pass over them. Luckily, the shell did not burst because it would have killed one half of the regiment. The only harm the rebels caused them besides some wounds was covering them in dirt. They got half way to the woods and then waited for the rest of the regiment to catch up. The army was ordered, one company at a time, to run into the woods; some ran but most walked because the rifled shells make a whistling sound so the rebels could easily know when they are coming and hide. The rebels fired 32 pound round shots as the companies traveled a little over a mile in the open field; the firing lasted an hour and a quarter. There was a very heavy thunderstorm that afternoon 30 May, 1862. They had to march three miles in the storm, the worst that Henry had ever seen, to get back to camp. Henry includes a sketch of the battle ground with notes on an extra envelope. He draws the rebel batteries at the edge of the woods and describes the course of events.