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10pp. (with 3 additional pages of unrelated philosophical thoughts). On stationery of the New Hampshire Fire Insurance Co. Waukegan, Illinois.

To W.H. Jenkins, a fellow officer of the 39TH Illinois, who later wrote a regimental account for the Illinois Historical Society. Botsford here sets down his memories of a regimental skirmish at the James River during General Grant’s 1864 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. Thirty years earlier, Bostford had prepared a similar reminiscence, included in an 1880 published Regimental history, but this letter is both more detailed and frank, etched in Botsford’s memory for a half century because he nearly died from heat prostration, exhaustion and illness. Brief excerpts which give the flavor of this spirited, literate reminiscence: “…the boys had jumped the enemy’s earthworks…turned the surrendering rebels to the rear…and pursued the retreating enemy. After the successful bayonet charge, there was but a …disorganized mass…We had moved after the Johnnies in a mob like order and knew that we could be of little use in case of meeting the Rebs in that formation…I thought I could halt them by shouting for them to stop and cool off. It worked…I picked up an officer’s sword remarking that it was ground to an edge. There were many muskets lying around and in the trench…there was no other officer of the 39th present…six stands of colors was seen in the near distance marching quickly toward us…All of us had a holy terror of Andersonville or Libby prisons. We must retreat or be captured. To attempt to resist such a force would be madness…We realized our losses. More than half of the regiment had failed to reach the rebel works. 7 out of 11 officers…were killed or wounded. I was the only one that escaped… to keep the regiment from falling in the enemy’s hands by their hazardous and reckless pursuit…We retreated. …I was that night detailed to command the picket line. I was desperately tired and exhausted…” Next morning, though ill with Typhoid fever, Botsford stood “at the entrance to the field, under a flag of truce, where our dead were being brought in for burial. This to a sick man was a horrible scene…a sickening sight…those blackened, blasted and stinking bodies as they passed before me..From that time for many weeks I can remember but little. Sick, near to death….“