Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

A.S. Davis, Civil War Letters, 1862, Accession #11338, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

These letters were purchased by the University of Virginia Library on October 21, 1997, from the Written Word Autographs, Tamworth, New Hampshire.

Scope and Content Information

This collection consists of three letters, all with their envelopes, 1862, from A.S. Davis, probably of the 1st Minnesota Regiment, Union Army, while serving in Virginia, to his brother, Charles Henry Davis, Little River, Maine, and his sister, Angie, Maine State Seminary, Lewiston, Maine, and Little River, Maine. The letter dated May 25, from Camp near Hole in the Ridge within some fourteen miles of Richmond, has a patriotic cover in blue and red with an eagle and flags. In this letters, Davis discusses the popularity of General George McClellan with his soldiers and officers, the bad roads and terrain of the area, his puzzlement over the plans of the secessionist army, their hopes of being in Richmond in a day or two, his supposition that the Southern army must be between the Chickahominy & James Rivers, and reports from a Union sympathizer that the Confederate army is discouraged and sick of fighting.

The second letter, July 27th, mentions the haying season in Maine and how he misses seeing the hay crop harvested eastern style, since the hay in Minnesota is principally made up of wild grasses growing in the meadows and marshy places, describes a review of the Sumner's Corps last Tuesday in which out of twenty-four regiments only the 19th Massachusetts Regiment and the 1st Minnesota Regiment were complimented in an order issued by General Edwin Vose Sumner (1797-1863) himself, and his visit to the 5th and 7th Maine Regiments. The last letter, August 1st, written from camp near Harrison's Landing, Charles City County, Virginia, describes an engagement with Confederate batteries from on the other side of the river opposite his camp who fired on the Union transports and troops killing six men before they were silenced.