Lot 413
U.S. COLORED TROOPS CHAPLAIN WRITES FROM VICKSBURG
Excellent, highly descriptive A.L.S., 6pp. 4to. "Snyder''s Bluff, nine miles from Vicksburg, in the front", April 8, 1864, from CHARLES WALDRON BUCKLEY (1835-1906), future congressman from Alabama, to Edward Andrews, a chaplain with the 2nd New Jersey cavalry. Buckley, at this time serving as a chaplain for the 47th Regiment, U.S. Colored Volunteer Infantry, writes to his friend near the beginning of both of their terms of service, reporting on his experiences thus far. In small part: "... After a good visit-at-house & among my friends, I started for Vicksburg on 3rd of Feb. ... Came on down without any trouble & set my foot on the historic place of V- on 9th Feb. Have you ever been there? The city is not so large as I expected to find. Almost every house & store is marked by shot or shell. The old caves used for dwellings & places of safety during the siege are visible everywhere. The whole city has a desolate appearance. The streets I found crowded with army wagons and cavalry horses, the sidewalks, with men wearing straps on their shoulders ... I drew a wall tent, put in it a good floor, had a chimney put up at one end, and a bright fire in it made my tent comfortable and cheerful ... I then put up two large hospital tents joining each other, for a school room, for you know my duties as Chaplain consists of teaching as well as preaching. There were only about two hundred men, & a few officers in camp, the rest had gone up the Yazoo River among the Rebs & their cotton ... Every thing was going on finely when one bright Sunday morning we were ordered to join our Regt. at Yazoo City. Now all was toil and confusion, by ten at night we were all aboard of the boat and started up the River ... We landed, worked till Saturday hard, then fought from 9 A.M. till sunset with three times our number, drove back the enemy, occupied our old lines, & gained a hard fought victory. Our regt. suffered severely, 10 killed in action 63 wounded, some mortally. Such a night as followed I never experienced, was up with wounded & dying till completely exhausted. I never saw suffering before. Yet I thanked my heavenly Father that he had brought me here to do, & suffer, if need be, for such brave men ... We are now nine miles from Vicksburg, on the Yazoo River, & most pleasantly situated ... There are three colored Regts. of Inft. & one colored cavalry Regt. There are no white soldiers to disturb or annoy us ... I find our me willing to attend all religious exercises & I wish you could come into our meetings. It does me good to hear these men pray. They move me to tears sometimes. I have quite a number who are good Christian men, & they are a great help to me ... As yet, this is no place for any except such as can fight, and run too if necessary. We have a park of artillery & are fortifying & shall be secure in a few days. The same force that met us at Yazoo City, show themselves frequently and destroyed a plantation just above here, the day we arrived ... We have seven or eight hundred contrabands in our lines here. If they are not removed, I expect to have charge of them, gather them together, have rations issued to them, cloth the needy, start Sunday services among them, open a day school and get a teacher to teach it. Poor creatures many of them suffer, as also do the soldiers, but they think this terrible ordeal through which they are passing is some way connected with freedom, so they utter not a murmur. Oh how much is to be done all through this country! ..." The letter as a whole is written in a very friendly and candid tone, and paints a very vivid picture of the war through the eyes of this educated New England student of religion. Folds, with scattered foxing, and some chipping at the edges, else very good.
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