“CAMP, near Fredericksburg,
Nov. 23rd, 1862.
” . . . We reached here on yesterday afternoon, having left Culpeper on Wednesday about twelve o’clock. We were on the road three days and a half, and it rained every day but the last. So you see that we have been enjoying ourselves. The Yanks were to have begun the shelling of Fredericksburg on yesterday, but they did not keep their word. We met yesterday, ladies on foot in all the mud and wet, five and six miles from the town, the women and children having been ordered to leave the place in anticipation of the opening of the fight. What kept the enemy from fulfilling their threats I don’t know. They demanded a surrender and the authorities refused; they then gave the citizens until nine o’clock the next morning to move out the women and children: they afterwards deferred it until two in the afternoon, but when two o’clock came the Yankee shells did not. The citizens in this section all accounts have suffered terribly from the presence of the Yankees in their midst and I think are prepared to undergo any privations rather than see the enemy again among them.
“I am much obliged for the things sent me—especially the razor, as cats are very scarce in camp and cream more so.
“We had a magnificent supper last night consisting of preserved salmon, sardines, pepper vinegar, beefsteaks, biscuits and butter and real coffee. It was quite a shock to my system, I assure you. . . . ”
(Note: picture is of an unidentified Confederate soldier.)