Civil War-dated ALS by a Private James K. Lewis of I Co., North Carolina 16th Infantry, signed "J. K. Lewis," four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 7.5, May 22, 1863. Handwritten letter to his mother, from "In the woods near Fredericksburg." In part: "I was in the fight five days and nights without any sleep hardly and no food but what I took out of the haversacks of the dead Yankees. I didn't get hurt by their bullets…I was touched on the hand by a canon ball on Friday evening & on Sunday a tree top cut by a ball fell on me & hurt me a little. On Wednesday morning one of the Yankee sharpshooters shot the sight off my rifle but I paid him for it with interest. I took several prisoners & got lots of letters out of the Yankee knapsacks…some of them very interesting particularly some who were writing to their sweethearts, the blustering braggadocio style of which would make you think there was but little chance for us poor rebels. I wonder that the women of the north should ever correspond with such bloodthirsty creatures. But they were particularly tame on the battlefield…I was fishing on the river a day or two ago and found several dead Yanks who had floated down from the place where they were shot on the pontoon bridge. The eels had eat many a meal off of them and the carrion crows were picking their eyes out where I found them. It turned my appetite for fish. I haven't eat any since…The 48th Va. was cut all to pieces and the 42nd too. I don't know whether Jno. Cosby was with the Regt. or not…But I am afraid that our boys from Patrick Co. have suffered severely. Bill Cox was shot through the neck…Col. McElroy was shot in the mouth, Col. Stowe in the head." In very good condition, with scattered dampstaining not affecting legibility. Lewis would be killed six weeks later at Gettysburg, on July 1, 1863.
