Civil War-dated ALS by a drummer of the 5th New Hampshire Infantry, signed "Charles Moody," four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.75 x 7.75, December 17, 1862. Handwritten letter to his mother, in part: "We have had one more battle & a hard one…My Captain was killed, Capt. Keller wounded in the arm, Josiah Brown killed & I cannot tell you all of them they are too numerous to mention…there is 60 or 70 men in our Regiment I don't know what they will do with us. The Col. is wounded…our Major killed, Jackson was hit with a shell & I have not heard of him since…our battle was in Fredericks Burg City the other side of the river, we had to fall back this side of the river. They licked us. They had forts built in all directions for their large cannons so they could fire on us in all directions & men could not step on the Battlefield without stepping on a wounded or a dead man. Mother it is awful to think of it I never have been so home sick since I left home as I did when I came back to camp & to look at the Regiment & see what few men there was. We left Concord with 1000 men & now sixty or seventy men left in the whole Regiment just think of that. This makes 10 battles our regiment has been in it is awful lonesome here." In fine condition.
The 5th New Hampshire sustained the greatest total loss in battles of infantry or cavalry regiment in the Union Army throughout the Civil War. At Fredericksburg, fate had the Fifth and the Irish Brigade directly facing the infamous 'stone wall' on Marye's Heights, where Confederate infantry was massed four ranks deep. By the end of the desperate struggle, the Fifth had lost over half of its men.
