- Joined
- Apr 1, 2015
Tucked into the front cover of the book were several faded newspaper clippings, and tipped in was a note from the author of the book, dated 1916, to a Mrs. Grindlay presenting the book to her. Judge of my surprise, though, when I found, pasted to the second inside page of the book, an old envelope with a letter inside.
I gently separated the envelope from the page to which it had been pasted, and taking out the letter (which literally looked like it had been written yesterday) found that it was from a captain in the 146th, James Grindlay, dated November 3, 1863, and written to a friend back in his home town of Clayville, New York. Excerpts from the chatty 3+ pg. letter (exactly as he wrote it, except for material in brackets) are below:
Dear Sir: Although you no doubt hear from the Army often through the members of the 117th, I know that some news from this part of it may be acceptable. I will therefore offer no apology for this letter but give you a brief sketch of what the Army of the Potomac has been doing for the last 6 mos. and the part the 146th has taken. We went to Chancellorsville, Va. and were engaged on the first day. We had between 60 and 90 men taken prisoners 4 killed & 6 wounded including Capt. Durkee of Co. "A" who lost an arm. We lay still after that until June 4th when we started on our forced march to Gettysburg, Pa. We suffered while on that march, the heat was intense and marching 30 miles a day under such a sun was no joke. There were many sun struck and here let me say that Genl. Hooker managed us splendidly and outgeneraled Lee at every point as that Genl's report testified. Hooker's transfer of this army from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville taking a round about road and landing us there before Lee knew anything about it was a splendid performance. . . The Army was handled well at Gettysburg it was a splendid sight. I would not have lost it for anything. Our Regt. lost 24 men, 7 of them from my company. We can see now that a splendid chance to whip the rebels was lost by not attacking them at Williamsport, for we could have punished them severely. I believe Hooker would have fought them. Everyone seems however to have every confidence in Genl. Meade he is a careful Genl. his management of the army while falling back from Culpepper was well planned, for the last 3 weeks we have been changing round, the enemy is yet on this side the river and I think we will fight before long. The army is filling up fast with conscripts and the[y] are generally a good class of men. We have recd. 200 of them. The Draft you see is not such a bad thing after all besides every young man ought to be in the army I think and I hope the Draft will be put through in Jan[uar]y. I sincerely hope that N.Y. decided yes[t]erday to vote to stand side by side with Ohio & Pa by the Government and the Union. Could the Soldiers vote I know it would for Copperheadism find no favor among the Soldiers as the vote of the Ohio Vols show. Strange that Pa should vote for Curtin in direct opposition to "Maj. Genl. McClellan" but they did, by the way a subscription was started here a while ago for McClellan but it didn't work, the fact is that McClellan is forgotten by the Soldiers notwithstanding the assertion of the papers. From all appearances another year will see the present rebellion ended and the states all united and represented in Senate & Congress as before. . .
A quick bit of research on Capt. Grindlay revealed that he eventually rose to command of the 146th, and in several instances during the 1864-65 campaigns commanded his brigade. Grindlay would end the war as a Brevet Brigadier General and would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Five Forks. All in all a nice, unexpected find!
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