“Our negro cavalry went out yesterday and they met with some five or six rebel scouts and they killed three of them...”

Autograph letter signed by Sgt. Nelson Garey (b. 1835), Co. B, 38th New Jersey Infantry. Camp of the 38th Regt NJV, Fort Powhattan, Virginia, 25 December 1864. 4 pages, 8vo, 5 x 8 in. With original yellow envelope with Old Point Comfort, Virginia Dec. 14 postal stamp.

Carey was drafted into service on 5 September 1864 into Company B of the 38th New Jersey Infantry. The regiment was involved mainly in minor skirmishes attached to the Army of the James, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, spending the majority of their time on garrison duty at Fort Powhatan along the James River. He mustered out of service at City Point, Virginia on 30 June 1865. Here he writes his wife on Christmas day, including details of the festivities conjured by the soldiers: "Our artillerymen on the fort has got trees set in the ground. They have all kinds of things hung on them for Christmas trees. They are boxwood and we have got them all around the fort and it looks very nice."

Notably, he includes a description of a Black cavalry unit: "My company went out last night on a scout after rebs and they did not get in camp till this morning about five o'clock. Our negro cavalry went out yesterday and they met with some five or six rebel scouts and they killed three of them and the other three got away and our company and Company D went to hunt them up but they did not find none. One negro got wounded in the breast with a pistol ball but it is not dangerous. It won't kill him." Though the regiment is not specified, the troops may have been from Wild's African Brigade who were stationed at the nearby Fort Pocahontas and repulsed Confederate Cavalry at Wilson's Wharf on 29 May of that year.

Condition: Short separations along old folds. Envelope is probably from another letter by Garey to his wife written around the same time.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Manuscripts, Letters, Documents, Ephemera, African Americana, African American History, Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, Buffalo Soldiers, USCT]