[ Autographs ] CIVIL WAR CORRESPONDENCE OF JEREMIAH STETSON A fine group of 20 letters, all multipaged and predominantly in ink, along with several poems, written by Jeremiah Stetson of Co. E. 23rd Massachusetts to his wife from Sept. of 1861 to the end of July 1863, with nteresting content, including a description of the battle of New Bern. Most of the letters are written in the vicinity of New Bern, as Jeremiah was part of the Union occupation force after the battle. The correspondence reads, in part: "...Newbern, Mar. 18, 1862...we have had another most terrible battle...our company was in the thickest... Ed [his son] never flinched a hair from first to last, but fired his gun every possible chance. I stuck to it til a rifle ball struck me onmy breastplate...it gave me quite a clip...a cannon ball struck a pinetree...timber flew and struck me on the side, rocked me down, conveyedoff my ramrod, burst a hole in my coat...we drove them out in about two hours. They had a battery flung up a mile and a half long to fightbehind...Eight hundred...come back to bury their dead and we took themprisoners...Newbern, Apr. 4, 1862...I heard a Negro woman say she has been washing for our men...they told her that maybe the Yankees would not pay her. She said that she did not care...she prayed many years for them to come, and they did come, and she would wash for them just as soon as the rhumatis' was out of her arm, pay or no...Oct. 10, 1862.. three regiments came in last night...they are good looking fellows but they are so green that you would take them for a field of cabbage.It is enough to put one in pain to see them handle their guns and see their awkward movements...it don't seem as though our regiment was ever half so green...July 4, 1863...Foster and his little army that went from here yesterday got up to Deep Gully 17 miles from here and met quite an army of rebs coming down here to give us fits, but they got our cannon to bear on them, the poor fellows had to fall back... Gen. Hickman went on after the rebs...17 wounded has been brought up into the hospital...we have heard of the fall of Vicksburg which cheers us up considerable....July 23...we are in barracks...laid out in this way [he then makes a detailed drawing of the layout of his barracks]...our boys have come in from expedition...they can twist therailroad rails half round....without making any noise. They can spoil railroad as fast as they can shift. It does not take more than half a minute to spoil a rail...". More, with transmittal envelopes, stamps removed. Short, two line note in pen by an ancestor on the Newbern letter, otherwise overall very good.