Monday, August 16, 2021

Major Charles Wright Wills: May 17, 1865

Aquia Creek, Va., May 17, 1865.

We passed over the whole line of Burnside's battle ground this morning. (It was no fight, only a Yankee slaughter.) Through Fredericksburg, the most shelled town I ever saw; crossed the Rappahannock on a miserable shaky pontoon, and have been traveling ever since in the camps of the Potomac Army. Desolation reigns equal to the Sodom and Gomorrah country.

Country much more broken than I supposed; very hot part of the day. One man of the 48th Illinois fell dead while marching, and eight or ten in our regiment badly affected by heat.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 382

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