Friday, May 25, 2012

1862 May 26 past Hanover Junction


[from the diary of John Tyler of Letcher's Artillery]

May 26th.  Up this morn-
-ing at daylight, and started in a short
time, on again, after eating the last of the
the [sic] bacon & bread, we brought with us.
Marched all day long and halted at
10 o’clock that night about a mile from
Ashland.  At about 4 o’c that day we
reached Hanover junction.  Here we left the
infantry to take the cars, and the Artille-
-ry & Cavalry with the train of baggage
wagons kept on, by the telegraph road.  As we passed
by the junction, we sent one of our men over
to the post office, when he returned he

                                                
brought me two letters, one from Jennie of
the 24th and one from Florrie enclosing
a note from Jennie which I enjoyed ex-
-ceedingly.  It commenced to rain as we
passed the railroad, and when we halted
at night it was raining hard.  Another
slight accident occurred. After dark as
we were descending quite a steep hill lead-
-ing over a bridge immediately at the
foot, with descents on each side of the
road, one wheel of my first caisson slip-
-ped off the bank and at the same time
the lead saddle horse fell over his driver
falling under him, bruising him quite se-
-verly, but fortunately not seriously.  We
extricated ourselves after while, by putting
another driver on the lead horses and the
man that was injured on the caisson.
Stopped just on the roadside for the night.
Although it rained hard all night, Jim
& I slept together very soundly at the foot

of a tree with nothing but a blanket over
us.

[transcription by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 6150

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