Near Yorktown Apr 8^th 1862

Warwick Court House Va.

 

My Dear Aunt,

                        Do forgive me for delaying so long to answer your very kind and welcome letter but I have been so situated that I have seen no opportunity when I could infringe upon my duties enouge enough to find time to even write you a few lines owing to the removal of our Regt from Tennally Town I did not receive your letter untill after our arrival at Fortress Monroe since then we have been toiling through the mud and water driving the Rebels and taking a few Batteries on the way but we have now / come to a stand still for the Rebels have five miles of Batteries before us to take and we have got to wait for some large seige guns before we can shell them out Genl M^cClellan was here yesterday making a recconnoisance and he says we shall soon have work enough to do the Rebels throw their shells over our heads here almost every day to aggravate us but they do us no harm our light Artillery can not reach them and we have to put up with it for the present we are all in good health here provisions are very scarce last night my supper consisted of a piece of / raw Bacon the roads are almost impassable so that the teams cannot transport provisions to us all that we get we have to forage from the enemy and that at the risk of our lives sometimes. if you look on the map you will see where we are on the Penninsula between the James and York Rivers I used to wish when we were at Tennally Town that we could be placed nearer to the enemy but I did know the privations the advance of our army had to undergo untill we were placed here some of the Regts in our Brigade are within / speaking distance of the enemy the weather for the last two days has been wet and cold our Boys have been engaged night and day in throwing up intrenchments we have no tents no fires are allowed on the advance only to cook by I have just returned from a short point above here where I could see a Regt of the enemy drilling in the skirmish drill the main body of their troops together with five of their Batteries are about half a mile from here if they knew how we were situated here in the woods they could shell us out of here with ease

 

[front overwitten]

 

I have just

heard that

we attack the

foe tommorrow

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