Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Henry T. Blanchard Civil War Letter, Accession 10756, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This letter was purchased from Dr. Francis G. Walett , of Abington, Massachusetts , on April 5, 1988.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

This letter from Corporal Henry T. Blanchard , a soldier belonging to Company K of the Second Rhode Island Infantry Volunteers , to his brother, August 26, 1862, was written from a camp near Yorktown, Virginia . Henry's brother had been recently discharged from the army and was on his way home. Henry refers to the evacuation of General George McClellan 's troops from Harrison's Landing on the James River , where they had been stationed since the conclusion of the Peninsular Campaign, August 8th to August 16, and mentions that the Army of the Potomac has now joined either General John Pope or General Ambrose Burnside , with the exclusion of General Erasmus Darwin Keyes ' IV Corps .

Henry T. Blanchard 's Company belonged to General Darius Nash Couches ' Division of Keyes' IV Corps , which had been assigned to Yorktown to level and tear down the fortifications which had been built by the Federals in front of Yorktown in the spring of 1862, so that a small force could hold Yorktown against a much larger Confederate force.

He relates an anecdote about a gunboat shelling the besieged Confederate forces in Yorktown , told by a black laborer in the town at the time. A large shell landed in the midst of several soldiers sitting around a fire cooking dinner in large kettles, killing ten or twelve men. Thereafter, the Confederates referred to these large shells as "Yankee Dinner Pots."

Henry T. Blanchard also favorably describes his present camp about a mile from the York River where General Hooker's Division was camped last spring. He also mentions a seafood feast enjoyed by the soldiers, and working with Corporal John J. Hilton on the payroll.