Camp near New Bridge, Va.,
Tuesday, June 10, 1862.
Dear Sister L.:—
The last week or so has been very dull here. Nothing to break the monotony but an occasional artillery duel across the Chickahominy, in which the rebels are always worsted. Sunday, the day you wrote your letter, was a pretty big day on the lines further to the left (Battle of Fair Oaks). We lay in our tents and heard the constant war of artillery and the rattle of musketry, and, as the sound retreated, we knew our boys were driving them. Lowe was up in his balloon right beside our camp, watching them and telegraphing to McClellan just what they were doing. You wanted me to tell you something about the large guns. I don’t know much about artillery myself, still I might tell you something new perhaps. “Parrott guns” are not all of the same size. In Battery No. 1 at Yorktown we had one hundred pound Parrotts and Griffin’s battery of light artillery has Parrott guns of three-inch bore. The peculiarity of this gun is in the construction. It is very long and slim and is noted for the strength and accuracy of its range. Those guns at Yorktown would throw a one hundred-pound shell two miles with great accuracy. I saw them drop just inside the rebel fort time and again. And these field pieces will throw a shell eight inches long and three inches in diameter as accurately three miles as they will half a mile. Our artillery and our artillerists are vastly superior to the rebels, and they are well aware of it. But of all the artillery, we have the greatest one yet in our regiment. We have a cannon drawn by one horse that one man can fire two hundred times a minute by merely turning a crank. Every revolution fires one ball. It is a curious Yankee contrivance. The cartridges are put in a hopper, carried one by one round in a cylinder, shoved into the barrel and fired. It makes a noise like the dogs of war let loose. The balls are only a size larger than our musket balls, a regular “Mime ball.” Don’t you think one of those coffee mills would “weed out” a secesh regiment about as quickly as any tools they have? I understand that every Pennsylvania regiment in the service is to have them. All the Pennsylvania regiments near here have them.
I have been quite unwell ever since the battle. I got overdone. Friday is the first day that I have felt at all like myself these two weeks. I think I shall be all right again soon.
Yesterday we had a grand review in honor of the Spanish General Prim. You have seen his name in the papers lately, I presume, in connection with the tripartite intervention in Mexico. He presented quite a contrast to the plain dress of “our George,” as he rode by in his gold lace and trimmings. Well, every nation likes its own style. There are many men even in McClellan’s staff who dress more showily than he does, but they don’t command the respect. There is hardly a man in the army who does not know George by sight and not a man but likes him.
I had more fun with some of the darkies at Hanover the day after the battle, more than a little. One old fellow told me how he acted when our shells began to come where he was. Says he, “Dere was ’bout twenty of us plowin’ and I hearn sumfin’ go pop-pop-p-p-pop, and pretty soon sumfin’ crash, bizz-z-z. right ober my head. I luff dat plow right dar and I went in dem woods quicker dan I went so far afore. I got down behind a log and I thought you gemmen was a makin’ our people run, and I jumped up and cried, ‘Glory to God!’ and just den ‘long comes ‘nudder of dem t’ings, bizz-z-z-z. Golly! I was down on my belly agin mi’ty quick. De oberseer run as if de debil was after him, but I larfed.”
A man named George Taylor who had inhumanly whipped a slave, came into our camp after him and he came near losing his life by the operation. He escaped by taking the oath of allegiance, but he lost his nigger. Peter is now with the colonel of the Twelfth regiment. Our camps are full of niggers. They are rapidly taking the place of white men as teamsters. They seem well adapted to that.
Richmond is not taken, but we could have taken it two week ago if George had wanted it. He wants to end the war here and he has not got everything ready yet. There is a good time coming yet, boys.
