Here is a long 11 page letter written by Sgt. Pettus C. Lehr on September 4, 1862 as his regiment has entered the state of Maryland during the Antietam Campaign.  The content is great!  He has a separate note to each of his 3 brothers giving great advice like…

“KEEP COOL AND KILL A YANKEE EVERY TIME YOU SHOOT”

Pettus served in Company I of the 12th Mississippi.  The letter is written on captured Union regimental stationary of the 51st New York.  In the letter he comments that, “I captured a good deal of paper and envelopes in fact… more than I could carry!”  The letter is in pencil, nice and clearly read and one of the finest Confederate letters we have seen written on captured Union paper! 

·         “We crossed the Potomac yesterday.  We had it to wade.  It was nearly waist deep.  We came in to
Maryland in our shirt tails.  I have got used to wading rivers.  We have waded all between here and
Richmond.”

·         “We left Richmond on the 12 of Aug. and have been a marching and fighting ever since.  I have been
into two fights since I left Richmond.  The last one was in the battlefield that the Manassas Battle
was fought.  We give them a good whipping.  The fight come off on the 9th of last month.  I suppose
we killed, wounded and taken prisoners over twenty thousand.”

·         “Dark came just about the time we got them to running good.  If they had of done as well on the right
wing of the army as we did on the left, we would of routed them good.  Our old General thinks our
Brigade can whip five men to one.  He is a great old fellow.  He is from Miss.  His name is Feathersston. 
Our Brigade is composed of the 12th, 16th, and 19th Miss. and the 2nd Miss. Battalion.”

·         “Our Brigade changed fifteen cannons at Manassas and taken them.  We have never failed in taking
every Battery that we charged except on the 30th of June.  We failed in taking one not being supported
in time.”

·         “I have been in six fights and have been spared though the next one I may fall.  If I do, I will fall in a
good cause, and I want all of you to meet me in heaven.  I hope some of my brothers are not so wicked

     as they were when we parted.  I have been very wicked since you left me, but thank God, I have quit
all of my wicked ways.”

·         “Pink, if you should ever get into a fight – keep cool and kill a Yankee every time you shoot – though I
hope you will not have any fighting to do.  I tell you there is no fun in fighting – though if you do go
into it – stand up to it and kill, kill a rascal every time that you shoot.”

·         “Thomas, I do wish you could have been with me the other day in the fight to of killed some of the
Yanks.  You are pretty good to kill any thing a running, and I think it would have been fun for you to
of tumbled some of them up.”

·         “But I would give anything in the world to be with all of you for a few days in fact I would like to be
in company with you but there is no chance for me to get a transfer.  Col. Taylor says he can’t let me
off.  The Regt. is so small he says he had rather not give any transfers.”

·         “Battle of Manassas.  General Strand got around in the enemy’s scene and telegraphed to Washington
that the Rebels were in full retreat and there were a great many citizens come down in a hurry to see
us run but when they came down they found it the reverse, that the Yanks were a running and they
were prisoners that have had a chance to see Richmond before this time.”