[CIVIL WAR]. Letter with graphic content describing Battles of Antietam and Shepherdstown written by Charles M. Freeman, Syke's Division. Camp on Potomac, 22 September 1862.

4 pages, 8 x 10 in., old folds, staining and toning to folds and margins, few holes near central fold.

In his letter to his friend Ross, Freeman writes, in part:

...I joined at Centerville just in time to participate in the close of Bull Run No. 2 and there our brigade of Reg. troops acted as flankers & skirmishers to the army as it fell back to Arlington and from there to Washington. We have fought three times in the last twenty days and of the 2nd that left Washington six month since 577 strong there remains for duty today just 154. Of 22 officers who left Washington with the Reg. there remains today with the Reg. 5 including myself.

We have had a very hard time - little to eat and when not marching lying around our guns (the artillery that is brigaded with us) to guard them from an Infantry or Cavalry attack while they were carrying on an artillery duel with the enemy, whose shell would occasionally burst among us & kill a few. Four days ago we did this from sunrise to sunset losing eight men. And this too after fighting infantry all of the 17th inst. I can safely say that this guarding batteries is the most trying duty of the service. Imagine yourself ling in the hot sun just behind the brow of a hill, where our 20 & 33 pounders are flinging shell & shot, with nothing to do but to watch the enemies shell & shot striking in front and in rare and sometimes exactly among you and screaming all around and above and this all day and you will confess there is very little poetry about it. However I have my poetry & romance while wounded and I am content...

Day before yesterday we waded the Potomac on a reconnaissance after the retreating foe. It was about waist deep and when we had fairy crossed our little brigade of some 800 men and thrown out skirmishers, we were attacked by about five thousand secesh. Of course we had to "git up and git" which we did very nice as our artillery from the Maryland side covered our retreat firing over our heads. As it was we lost twenty or thirty who were shot in the water and went floating among us down the stream. "This child" came near coming back to you again a lame duck or dead as their shot tore his blouse, the same you last saw him in, in five different places...

We don't know what we will do next. At present we are in camp in a grove just behind a hill on the banks of the Potomac. Our batteries are on the hill and occasionally fire across at Virginia, who responds with a shot or shell which tears through the branches above or around us, but rarely is effective...

In a postscript, Freeman adds:

As soon as we know where are to be for a a day or two I shall write to you and send the funds for those rectangles at Tiffaney's [sic]...Address me at "Syke's Division" "McClellan's Army," "Washington" and I shall get the letter.

The letter may have been written by Charles M. Freeman, a New York native who enlisted on 8/5/1861 as a 2nd lieutenant and was commissioned into US Army 2nd Infantry. He was promoted 1st lieutenant, captain, and major by brevet before retiring on 4/18/1866.

Bob Zeller Civil War Collection

This lot is located in Cincinnati.