Camp of the 2d Vermont Brigade

near the Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa. July 4, 1863

Dear Parents:

As I am aware that you know of our old camp at Union Mills and that there has been a great battle. I suppose you will be anxious to learn of our welfare. So far as I am concerned, I am safe and sounds but alas I couldn't say as much for the whole company. Moses Baldwin is dead, as is also S.A. Winship of Weston Joel R. Spaulding of Andover, and Joseph Ashley of Cavendish, and seven or eight more are wounded including Alfred Moore, Volney Earle, Lorenzo Miner, Mark Bixby of Ludlow, and Carlisle of Cavendish. I do not know where Alfred is and can not find out, though I think he must have got to one of the hospitals, as we can not learn that any of the burying parties have buried him, and he is not in the fields. He is the only one of our company that is not accounted for.

I learned just now that Lenal Lamb has died of his wounds. Our regiment has lost 140 men in all, out of between 600 and 700 that we went in with. We captured two stands of Reb colors and any quantity of prisoners. It has been a rough experience for us, but we have got along with it so far and depend upon it, this band box Brigade has done no discredit to the State. Indeed all the old troops and officers and everybody else that knows anything about it say that they never saw men behave better.

My knapsack, blankets and everything else except what I had on my back has in soldier parlance, gone up, but l have picked up two rubber blankets and two fly kits, and that with a towel, this comprises my outfit, but I guess 'twill do until the 23d. I have let one of the boys have one of the rubber blankets. Lee's army is getting awfully beaten here, and I am in hopes that he will not escape. Longstreet is a prisoner to us.

We may have to fight them again but I feel in hopes that they are so badly beaten that they will not be able to do any more such fighting as has been done lately. Our wounded boys are not any of them dangerously hurt. Miner has a wound in the leg from a grape shot but no bones broken or injured. We have been having the biggest thunder shower that you ever heard of just now.

I am indebted to Uncle Joseph for this sheet of paper and pencil, and will not write again until I can get some more somewhere. We have had no mail since we left Union Mills, and I don't know when we will have some. I will write no more now but will answer all questions when we get back to Vermont. Perhaps I ought to have said that the 12th and 15th were both with the trains and did not get into the fight. H.G. Day

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Contributed by Linda M. Welch, Dartmouth College, Windsor County researcher.

Return to the Index of Hezron's letters..

See also Hezron's biography, and his memoir of the Gettysburg Campaign.