online catalog

• What's New
• Reduced Price Items
• Artillery
• Books
• Bottles
• Buttons
• Confederate
• Contemporary Artist Prints
  • Framed Prints
  • Unframed Prints
• Currency, Bonds & Tokens
• Documents & Paper Goods
  • Art
  • Broadsides
  • Commissions
  • Discharges
  • Letters
  • Newspapers
  • Signatures
• Edged Weapons
  • Bayonets
  • Knives
  • Scabbards
  • Swords
• Firearms
  • Carbines
  • Cartridges & Gun Tools
  • Handguns
  • Holsters
  • Longarms
• Gettysburg Items
• Identified Items
  • Accoutrements
  • Edged Weapons
  • Firearms
  • Personal Items
  • Photography
  • Uniforms & Cloth
• Medical Items
• Military Accoutrements
  • Buckles/Plates
  • Canteens
  • Insignia & Badges
  • Leather
    • Belts
    • Cap & Cartridge Boxes
    • Haversacks / Knapsacks
    • Holsters
    • Scabbards
  • Spurs
• Personal Items
  • Amusements
  • Cooking
  • Jewelry
  • Personal Hygiene
  • Sewing
  • Smoking
  • Writing
• Photography
  • Albumens
  • Albums
  • Cabinet Cards
  • CDVs
    • Identified CDVs
    • Unidentified CDVs
  • Hard Images
    • Ambrotypes
    • Daguerreotypes
    • Tintypes
  • Stereoviews
• Relics
• Stock Items
  • Books
  • Clothing
  • Riker Cases
  • Shell Bases
  • Wood Display Cases
• Uniforms & Cloth
  • Flags
  • Headgear
  • Sashes & Hat Cords
  • Uniforms
• Veteran Memorabilia
  • GAR
  • UCV
• WWI / WWII
  • Equipment
  • Posters

UNION SOLDIER LETTER - BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL CLARK SWETT EDWARDS

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Written by Edwards while serving as  Captain  of Co. “I”, 5^th Maine Infantry. Dated “Thursday May 8, 1862 ,Brickhill Point near West Point VA.” Four page fragment of a letter detailing 5^th Maine activities in the Battle of Brickhouse point following the Battle of Williamsburg, May 5^th, during Gen. McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign. 3 pp. in ink on unlined paper, 8” x 10. Exhibits fold-marks and a pair of miniscule smudges, else VG and entirely legible.

A resident of Bethel, ME, 37 years of age, Clark Swett Edwards enlisted as Captain and was commissioned into Company “I”, 5^th Maine Infantry, 6/24/1861. He was promoted Major and transferred to Field & Staff  (7/1/1862), and later to Lt. Col.(11/22/1862) and to Colonel (1/8/ 1863). He was mustered out, 7/27/1864, and later received promotion of Brigadier General by Brevet (3/13/1865).  Edwards died in 1903 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Bethel, ME.

Organized in Portland on 6/24/1861, the 5^th Maine was engaged at the 1861 Battle of Bull Run, and afterwards participated in all the major Campaigns and battles of the Army of the Potomac from McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign through the beginning of the Siege of Petersburg, 19-22 June 1864, after which it was mustered out 7/27/1864. During service it lost 107 men killed and mortally wounded and 77 by disease for a total of 134.

Captain Clark’s three page letter fragment, dated May 8, 1861, is proceeded at the top of the by four earlier lines in pencil. To wit: “part of our fleet has come to anchor, about one mile ahead of us. I would say that the York River is a very fine river, finer than any I have yet seen. It has been…”

At which point he resumes his earlier letter of May in ink. To wit:

“You will see by this letter that I gave off writing very abruptly. I will now finnish this from the time I left off to the present. It is now 8 o’clock am , as fine a morning as I ever saw. On Tuesday after I left off writing we came to this place, one division with the exception of our Cavalry, and I think one Battery. I was the first of our regiment and almost the first of our army that made the landing. We landed under the fire of one gunboat, after reaching shore we stayed in our regimental line near the house while one of the New York regt. Picketed out about a half mile. We were kept around General Franklin & Slocum’s headquarters for the first night. Yesterday morning we were up a four o’clock and was ready for anything.  Just at daylight they brought in one of our pickets dead. He was shot through the hart. He was an acting Lieutenant of Co. “D”, 27^th New York, a fine fellow to. I have seen him a great any times I have acted as field officer of the day.

A few hours after he was shot they were looking at the place that he was shot they found the devil that shot him dead. He was an Alabamian. There was three of the New Yorkers near one another at the time and after one Picket was shot they fired in the direction of the devil but did not know whether they kill him till yesterday morning.

They took breakfast at about six o’clock & they fell into a line as our pickett had opened the ball. At seven we had advance in front about  ½ mile and then come by the left flank and went into the woods into the fight. Then we were ordered out to support our battery, staid in that position about an hour, and was then ordered into the woods again to feel of the enemy. We went into the woods about 75 rods and then threw out our company as skirmishers in front. We then marched up in about twelve to fifteen rods of some two thousand of the Rebs as we should judge, and took their fire but did not have but one man killed and three wounded. I will state it near as possible so that you may believe what I write.

Company I was in was most exposed of any in the regt. But did not get a man hurt but they done nobly not a man in the company flinched or hardly left the ranks. Co G next to ours had one man lost a finger shot accidental by moving through the woods. Co H third one fire_____none hurt. Company A come out all right. Company B one man wounded bad, the back of shoulders and & neck but will recover again as it was a flesh wound. Co. E had none hurt. Co. D the same. Co. K had one wounded just below the knee. His leg is not taken off yet do not know if it will be. One other his leg slightly glazed but he kept in the fight. Co. F all come out safe. That is a true acct. of the Maine 5^th as to casualties.

Our noble band was tending on the dead and the wounded all day. They brot in some fifteen or twenty of the dead and wounded. The most of the other regt. Our regt. Done to itself honor and not a man left the regt. For the day only the wounded that was carried off that went into the fight at seven and staid till last night.

So you see we were under the fire of the devils for some eleven hours but they made there last fire on us at about two and then left. The last fire was on our regt. It was in thick ever green growth. I should think to be some twelve or fifteen rods off. We were protected by an old fence that was built  through the woods. I am in a house now and so shall write you again. More this afternoon if we do not leave. I hope you will receive this as soon as the news gets to you any way of the fight. I thinks there was about one hundred killed and wounded from our side and more than that evidence.  I will give you a full acct. in very next of the Battle. I am all right and safe so do not trouble yourself about me. I am feeling and ready to go when our country calls….”

Gettysburg Note: Serving with the 6^th Corps, arriving late in the afternoon of July 2, the 5^th Maine suffered no casualties among its 340 effectives while assisting the 5^th Corps in the Wheatfield area. Its monument sits on the west of Sedgwick Avenue, north of the Wheatfield Road.

An exceptional Maine CW collectible. Superb letter filled superior battle content and casualty reporting, from the fight at West Point, Va, kicking off McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in the wake of the Battle of Williamsburg in early May ‘62. Colonel Clark richly deserved the Brevet Brigadiership commission he was awarded at the end of the war. In protective sleeve. [jp][ph:L]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS ITEM, AS WITH ALL OTHER ITEMS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEB SITE,

MAY BE PURCHASED THROUGH OUR LAYAWAY PROGRAM.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR POLICIES AND TERMS.

THANK YOU!

Inquire »