1862 May 19 4 miles from Richmond

 4 miles of Richmond
                                                    19th May 1862
My Dearest Mother
                                    I received to day yr. let-
ter of the 9th with a P. C. of the 10th
sent through Mc Kinney & Drefuss. In
my last I suggested you direct to
Richmond. Do so to care of George
J. Herring (alias fish). It will be my qui-
kest way of getting them. This I put
first lest I might forget to mention
it. You do not dear mother know
how sorry I feel at hearing of Dear
little George’s sickness. Give him
a warm kiss for me & tell him I
have always since in the army
wanted to see him a great
deal – but I had rather be with
him now when sick, than at
any other time. Oh! How I hope he
is now relieved from that
painful disease. Tell him I
have occupied all the spare time

[page 2]
I had to day, before our march
commenced & since until now
late in the evening, in cooking
It being my turn to day & one
cook having left us about
a month ago for fear of be-
ing cut off from his woman
who lives in Orange Co. We have
tho a prospect for getting another
in a very few days. I begin to
think I am one of the experts
in camp as to cooking. Tho’ you
orJulia would  not consider
me so. I have written home, two
or three letters since the fight at
Williamsburg. I suppose you have
received them before now. I will
not say anything about it now – I
expect I talked too much about it then.
too much. We have fallen back to
this place or the vicinity of Rcd.
I see the enemy’s newspaper ac-

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counts state they had 20:000
men on the field & we fifty. I wrote
the no. we had and on the field.
Our brigade have marched a-
round Richmond & are now on
the Mechanichsville turnpike wh:
runs out towards Old Church
in Hanover county. I tell this that
you may have an idea of the move-
ments of our troops. Our Picketts
were run in to within 2 ½ miles of
us this morning, but were strength-
ened & returned to their position
about 7 miles down the Rd. I think
a battle will be somewhere about
Richmond before a very long
period of time has elaspsed, or
strategical moves on a most
gigantic scale. I did not know
until to day your mule had been
hurt – how was it done? It is
probable that the organi-

[page 4]
zation of our army compa-
ny will be revised & we will
have a new election. It is
possible Mc Carthy may be
beaten. I was quite glad
to hear of that . I think Jery [?]
is so much better off
than I thought. I sincerely
wish I was at home to see
the beautiful (the prettiest flo-
wers I have ever seen) & deli-
cate flower by Julia’s house)
in bloom, but more than
I might see my friends.

Letter of William H. Perry of the Richmond Howitzers will continue on the 20th


[transcribed by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 7786-d