A letter from Cousin Benny Fleet, Green Mount, Va.

Dear Cousin James,

Oh! How sad it was to hear of the death of the noble and good General Jackson ! The victory our brave troops gained at Chancellorsville was no victory with so severe a loss. No man in the Confederacy would have been more missed and more deeply lamented, except Lee perhaps, than he.

Several weeks ago, about the time of the great battle at Chancellorsville we all went to school and found everybody very much excited as some 200 Yankees had passed through here and everyone had a grand story to tell. The yanks had been in the county, stopped at our home and had taken ten horses, including John ( a horse ) and destroyed the boats at the ferry, so I could not cross. They had been to Mr. Hibbles and took all of his horses too, but left him an old broken down horse as a “replacement” which we have named “Beauregard”. Mr. Carlton’s son, Major Charles Carlton, is here. He came directly from Fort Delaware where he had been a prisoner for about 4 months.

Brother Fred reports that there is nothing new with “Wise’s Gardeners”, and probably never will be. They drill twice a day and the rest of their time is spent reading and talking about the events of the day. Ma and the girls picked lettuce, spinach and strawberries from our garden the other day. Wonder whose is better, Ma’s or “Wise’s”. I’ll send some up to you when I travel north in two weeks. I might bring some of Ma’s switchel too.

The Home Guard here in Gloucester is seeing more action than the 26^th Virginia, but with only 23 of us within eight miles of here to take up arms to fight the Yankees we are more suited to grabbing the livestock we can gather and heading to the woods until the raids are over. Ma and the girls can handle a pistol if the ever have to. The Yankees seem more interested in burning barns and stealing horses than they are in harming citizens …. So far.

There’s talk around that we should take the war to the North and give Lincoln a taste of his own medicine. Pa says that Washington is the best defended city in the WORLD, and that Baltimore or New York would be better targets. Philadelphia too. As long as Hooker is Abe’s choice in commander we have the upper hand, especially since he got his bell rung at Chancellorsville.

This may be the most important summer of the war so far. We’ve beaten the Yanks in every big fight so far, and Pa says if Lee can catch those Blue bellies while our boys are so full of victory we can end this war. It’d be a shame if I never get to join the fight, but I’d just be glad to have everybody home again.

Write me when you can,

Benny Fleet