YANKEES IN BOAT ARE "INDUCED" TO COME TO CONFEDERATE LINE…AND ARE CAPTURED
Good content Confederate soldier's letter, 4pp. 4to., "Bates Regiment, 2nd Tennessee [Robinson's] Infantry", Dec. 20, 1861 in which Pvt. Robert M. Rucker of Co. A writes his parents. He describes his hopes to visit a dentist to have a tooth pulled which"growls", and discusses the construction of his winter quarters which will sleep three and is equipped with: "nice racks for our guns & accoutrements of war to rest upon". He continues: "…I am on Police Guard today and tomorrow night…Our company goes down on Picket on the river at the mouth of the Chissawanie[?]…some of our men…captured five live Yankees, two little boys & two grown Yankees, they were in a boat out on the Potomac and were foolish enough to be induced to come over to our shore. They were taken to Richmond…day before yesterday…there was the heaviest cannonading…in the direction of Centreville…rumor says there was another fight at Leesburg…This blockade at Evans Port does not amount to much and the forces on our side here are only acting as guards to the right bank…to prevent McClellan from fronting our right…Tell the Black ones all howdy and that they must take good care of all the stock on the farm…". Some scattered toned spots else very good. Rucker would fight at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Franklin, Nashville, and in the Carolinas, until his capture at Goldsboro on Mar. 22, 1865 and imprisonment at Point Lookout.