Suffolk April 27^th 1863.

 

Dear Cousin Alice,

                                    I presume you will have by this time have been informed of my wherabouts & circumstances by the letter which I dispatched to Frank a few days ago, so you will not be so much surprised at my long silence. The rebels are making themselves a perfect nuisance down in this part of the country; they won’t allow a fellow to take any solid peace or comfort at all at all They keep continually hovering around, keeping us constantly on the watch & look out, not commencing a regular assault upon the place, for the very good reason, they don’t choose to risk the chance of/annihilation, which certainly from the appearance of certain fortifications & iron monsters inside of them, looks likely enough to await any force approaching them with hostile intention.

 

                                                                                                May 1^st 1863.

On picket duty along the railroad.

                        As I saw that the only opportunity of finishing this letter would be for me to take my writing materials along with me, I have done so, & will endeavor to get this into the mail before long. I tell you such an endless round of duty as we have had for the past week & in fact ever since this scare began, I never saw before. We are on duty of some sort every day. Since I commenced this letter we have moved camp & that is a regular botheration, when you have everything else to attend to at the same/time. Today a party of about sixty of us are on picket duty way down in the dismal swamp. What we have to do is principally to keep watch of railroad, see that no depredations are committed on it. I have read of Southern swamps, but I never before realized just what one was. It is indescribable so I won’t undertake it. you have read many better descriptions than I could give any way. One week ago today we had an occurrence a little out of the ordinary routine of our military life so far; no less a circumstance the second battle in which the 15^th have been engaged. Though nothing but a slight skirmish, yet it was something of a novelty to us. It being deemed necessary by military authorities to make a reconnaisance (reconnonsense we call it) to ascertain more definitely the strength & position of the enemy, some five or six thousand of us were sent out on what is called the Edenton road, for that purpose. We started about one o clock, P.M. & proceeded about five miles, when we came upon the enemy’s pickets. Skirmishers were sent out & we kept on, driving them before us & our light artillery sending shot & shell after them as they retreated through the woods & across the cleared fields, their sharpshooters troubling us but little as they pecked away at us from behind trees & buildings & whatever they came to affording them shelter. Thus we proceeded our regiment in the advance a few yards in the rear of the skirmishers, occasionally lying down to allow their shot to pass over us till we came to a piece of thick pines just in front of which they had put up a sort of breastworks, & from behind these, they popped away at us pretty lively. Our skirmishers hesitated about entering those woods single handed, & we received the order to charge through & yell like ---- anything you have a mind to imagine. Did you hear a noise about that time? if so, no doubt it was the yell the 15^th gave then. At any rate, the way we entered & went through those woods wasn’t slow. And as for the rebs that were there—they didn’t stop to take their domestic goods with them at all, but left them scattered/in thick profusion; haversacks blankets overcoats lay strewn in every direction. Our artillery all this time kept coming up & playing over us amongst them. But as we neared the other edge of the woods, a sound breaks upon our ears, from the opposite direction, & shells came crashing over us, that were evidently sent from no friendly source, & as we emerged from the woods & came to a fence on that side, behold a cleared field on the farther side of which stretched a line of earthworks, over & behind which the rebs we had just routed could be seen hiding as fast as ever they could, more than that, flash after flash, report after report, & crash after crash, over our heads among the trees announced the presence of a formidable force. Lie down/men said the Col. & down we lay behind the fence, while the artillery on both sides began to play sharp & lively. The rebels either directed their fire entirely at our artillery or they imagined us farther back in the woods than we were, for their shells went over us all of them, & what a crashing among the trees.

 

The regiment back of us, in the woods, caught some of them & met with some loss. It began to grow late, & we had found & tested the strength of the enemy which was the object for which we came out, so our Gen thought it not best to press them any farther. Accordingly we filed off out of range while the artillery kept them busy & when we got everything ready the whole force withdrew & the rebs followed us not an inch. We got back about sundown, having done quite an afternoon’s job./

 

What surprised me the most was, that our regiment lost no more men, one killed & three or four slightly wounded. None were injured in our Co, several were struck with spent balls. Your humble servant got never a scratch. Thus ended our second engagement, may we ever be as fortunate. What’s become of Aunt Lib, I haven’t heard from her this long time. Has Frank got home yet? I had a letter from her a while ago, she was then in West Hartford. Do you have any warm weather in H. it is hot as summer here today. I can write no more now so adieu for this time.

 

Please remember me to all the friends. Write me soon.

 

                                                            Your Aff cousin

                                                                        R K Woodruff.

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