Find your roots and hear your ancestors' words across the generations. Discover your origins in old letters as ancestors tell their stories and reveal family relationships, past events, moments in time and details of family history. Add branches to your family tree as you search your ancestry and build your genealogy.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Edward Brooks to sister Sarah
June 1864 letter datelined 11 US Inft 1st Brig, 2nd Div., 5th AC-We have had no fighting,... but since tow oclock this morning we have been hearing musketry in the 9th corps. they have been very rapidly cannonading for a couple of hours ...we are now within 2 miles of Petersburg, but the confederates still hold that place. ...we have been making our way here from near cold harbor, across the Chickahominy, to charles city court house and yesterday we crossed the james at windmill point some 25 or 28 miles below Richmond. the trains crossed on a pontoon bridge said to be 2100 feet long... the troops crossed in transports. the 2nd corps crossed on the 15th and the 9th corps just afterards.. the 18th corps under gen smith went by transports through white house and up the james and was the first to advance on the south side of the river.. I hear a cannon about twice a minute, it is about 10 am, and firing will probably cease soon. June 18th we moved out hospital...we took earth works and the commanding position of this whole vicinity which the rebs would not have yielded if they had intended to make a stand against us.. These heights overlook Petersburg and only a mile distant so that 3 church spires are in plain sight above the tree tops.
