Cumberland,Md.

January the 18th, 1865

Dear Uncle,

I will take this present opportunity to inform you that I am well & hearty at present and I truly hope when these few poorly written lines come to hand that they find you & your family all enjoying the same great blessings.Well Uncle, I haven’t forgotten you yet. I have seen a hard time since I saw you. Hard marching and starvation and hard fighting and we are just the ones who can do the fighting. We have been in eight or nine battles & we have never been defeated but once yet. And that was Jully the 24th when poor Bob Lewis was killed. He died next morning after the fight, but as I might say it was no fight for as soon as we saw that we overpowered we fell back. There was about five to our one, our regiment waas the only regiment that left the battle field in line of battle and we marched till about 10 oclock that night in line of battle. At one time they had us surrounded. At one time we gave them a volley and raised the yell and fixed bayonets and walked right thru. But that was no fight. The fight there the 19th September was the hardest fight that ever was fought in the valley. It began around day break and lasted until between sundown and dark. That was the greatest fight that I ever saw. It was enought to harden the heart of a wooden man. Our two divisions flanked them on the right. That was Crooks command & calvary on our right. You should have seen the calvary charge the rebs. When we started them from their breastworks I was among the first that got to the breastworks. They set full of reb-guns, some cocked and capped and some empty and some broken. The nineteenth army corps was engaged before we got in, as we marched in the wounded rebs were as thick a regiment marching and the ambulance full as they could stickk. I believe that we lost betweeen 5 & 8 thousands killed & wounded and the rebs loss was great or greater than ours. They laid thick in places as dead sheep. One dead reb’s dog laid beside him until he was buried.

I dreaded the Fisher Hill fight worse than any fight that I was in, but our command got around them before the knew it. We we started them we never gave them time to stop. We followed them to Harrisburg within 24 mi. of Stanton. We fell back & followed us back & pitched into us the 19th. of October and we defeated them worse than they were ever defeated and then they left us alone.

I must bring my letter to a close. It is so dark that I can not see. George Pickard, Ben Lewis, Bub Fisher, Peter H. Hawkings and I mess together and we have a time. Nothing more at present, I remain your true friend till death.

Write soon & often

Lewis Edwards

(Grampa’s letter to his uncle, Issac Lewis)