Transcription: 19th Maine at Fredericksburg

Transcribed Copy:

"Camp near Falmouth, Va
Jany 5th 1863

Dear Sir

I have no news of our movements to give you as we are in complete ignorance of where we are going even when we get the Order to march. You have without doubt received the detailed account of our sad fate before & at Fredericksburg but you cannot realize the appearance of the battlefield without being present. I had a full view of the whole fight. Genl. Howard ordered me to take two Companies & support Capt. Benjamin's Battery of six 20 Pound Rifled Cannon. I took the Belfast Company Commanded by Lieut. Cunningham & Company B Commanded by Capt. Noyes of Belfast and if you could have seen how snug they could get their heads to the ground when the shells were passing over us it would have pleased you, but we all got out of the fight without being injured. When all six of those guns was brot to bare on any one object the effect was terable. The Rebs run a gun up from behind a hill and fired three shot at us when the whole battery directed fire on it and in two minutes the gun and carriage was stove to splinters & never seen by us again."

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