If he was wounded, I can't quite place any battles that would fit the time frame and his being at Hampton Roads. There was the battle of Fredericksburg in mid-December, but F'burg is a good 2-3 hours from the Hampton area by car. There were several smaller battles in Wayne Co., NC in December 1862. Battery B (NY) of the 2nd Light Artillery was present at Fredericksburg, but didn't see action. He could possibly have been in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, which fell into Union hands in 1862. Most of the soldiers who were there at that time were involved in the Peninsular Campaign, in which the aforementioned Battery B (NY) of the 2nd Light Artillery took part. The other hospital I found that could have housed soldiers of the Peninsular Campaign is the "Endview" estate. What an ironic name for those who actually didn't survive. I imagine he was part of the peninsular campaign, but who knows. Anyway, just my unasked-for 2 cents! tk Gary Welch <[email protected]> wrote:The roster of the 2nd US Light Artillery doesn't appear to be in the online databases. I did find Clark Taylor. He enlisted at age 21 on 5/10/1861, less than a month after Ft. Sumter, in Battle Creek MI. He was discharged 2/2/1863 in Newport News VA. He received a pension in 1863 so he was probably wounded or otherwise incapacitated. His widow, Generva Taylor, received a pension after he died in 189?. She was living in MA at the time. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 8:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NYFL] Civil War letter -- What happened to GB Dixon? Do you know what happened to this man? Does anyone know? What a snapshot in time -- April 20, 1862 -- Seems that he referenced "Friend Caward" -- the addressee "Birt" -- a fellow soldier in Co B, 2nd US Light Artillery, who also knows Caward, because he says that as of the date of this letter he "is well & expects to have a fight soon." "Cousin Clark Taylor of the Mich. 2nd" "Marv" -- another fellow soldier who also knows Caward "Capt. Robertson" -- again, Co. B. "Gill" -- friend or relation of "Caward" -- Picture those soldiers, marching those days into the burned remnants of Southern towns; hearing stories of battles before them and gaining awareness of what they, too would face. These were just boys, most of them; farm kids from the Finger Lakes to whom the occasional slaughter of a pig or chicken for family meals was routine, and to whom blood was no stranger. They were used to working hard from dawn until dark, doing what needed to be done, getting their hands dirty, taking orders from someone older and being outdoors in all weather. They were even used to the ravages of diseases that, if caught, could take their lives in ways more agonizing than any bullet. What they weren't used to was war. There hadn't been a real war since their grandfathers were boys. Most of them had probably known death of one kind or another, as disease, old age, childbirth and accidents claimed family members, friends and neighbors. Many of them knew what it was to take down livestock and prepare it for the table. What must have dawned on them, though, sure as the sun rose each morning that spring in Virginia, was that war was different. They got up, and they marched down ruined roads and through blackened fields and they met survivors and buried victims, and they had to begin to understand that sooner or later they would be the ones that the Rebels would stand and fight. So when they weren't marching they bivouacked, and they cooked, and they groused and played cards. And they wrote letters home, which was something else they weren't used to, most of them. And they told people they loved, in the plainest words they knew, about their days and their nights, but not about their fears, or their loneliness. They were just boys, but they were soldiers. Elena Anderson ______________________________ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more