The following letter was published in the Miners’ Journal of Pottsville, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1864 as the bloodiest year of the Civil War raged on.
In Rifle Pits, Near Petersburg, Va.,
June 22, 1864
Editors Miners’ Journal: Enclosed find a list of casualties in Company K, 56th Regiment Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers from June 18th to June 22nd:
June 18
Killed – Private Thomas King
Wounded – Isaac Ansbach, Samuel Hearlinger, Mathis Hearlinger, Corporal Josiah B. Brown, Sergeant Allen McCall, Private Daniel W. Harrison, Henry Portman
June 20
Killed – Conrad Rice
June 22
Wounded – Jonathan Smith
On Saturday last we made a desperate charge on the enemy’s rifle pits at this place, but I am sorry to say that we were driven back with heavy loss on our side. Two divisions charged, the 1st and 4th, while the 2nd and 3rd were held in reserve.
Our Regiment suffered more than any other Regiment in the Division. Our Division (the 4th) is commanded by Brig. Gen. Cutler, and the Brigade by Col. William Hofman, formerly commander of the 56th Regiment. He is one of the best officers in this Division – cool and brave.
We are now lying in our rifle pits, and have to lay very low, or we will be shot at by the Johnnies [Confederates]. I think they shoot very carelessly, for during our charge I had my rifle broken and the tin cup knocked off my haversack. I commenced to think that they were in earnest.
We are not four hundred yards from them now, and our skirmishers cannot be more than two hundred yards from their breastworks. They have no skirmishers out, only at night. Ours have pits that they lay in, but it is dreadful hot for them, right in the open field. We put up our shelter tents during the day.
This morning Col. Hofman sent word around to the Regiments that they should detail three men from each Company to shoot at the graybacks from the breastworks. He said that if their balls could reach here, ours would surely reach there. Since we have done so, we can go back to the rear for water with a little less danger of being hit. Before that, we did not dare to put up our heads.
During the time I was back making coffee, I should judge some 15 minutes, there were four wounded and one killed.
I must now come to a close, as they are commencing to throw shells, and it is rather warm to be sitting up writing.
Sergeant [Isaac] B. Jones
Isaac Jones wrote this letter home to inform Schuylkill County’s leading newspaper of the heavy toll combat had taken on his comrades in Company K, 56th Pennsylvania.
The 23-year-old non-commissioned officer was writing from the trenches near Petersburg, Virginia where US and Confederate forces met, dug-in, and would continue fighting until the final weeks of the Civil War in April 1865. Jones was recording the first days of the Siege of Petersburg that would last more than 9 months.
Jones survived the hellish scenes on the front lines at Petersburg and returned home to Schuylkill County in the summer of 1865. He lived out his days as a laborer in the mines near Ashland and passed away in August 1889 at the age of 50. Jones remains were interred at the Christ Church Cemetery in Fountain Springs, Schuylkill County.
(Photograph: US Army soldiers in the trenches at Petersburg, Virginia in 1865 – LOC)
Subscribe to the latest from Jake Wynn – Public Historian
Enter your email below to receive the newest stories.
A Pennsylvanian enforcing the divine right of people in Massachusetts to tell people in Virginia how to live.
An American fighting to preserve the Constitution during an armed rebellion that sought to forever entrench the system that enslaved four million people.