Linsley, Benjamin M.

Private Benjamin M. Linsley, a soldier from Connecticut, served (1862-1863) in Company A, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, Army of the Potomac. On 4 Dec. 1862, Benjamin Linsley's company left Fort Trumbull, Conn., boarding a boat called the City Of New York at New London, Conn., along with a group of deserters under arrest, who were landed in Jersey City. After landing in New York, Linsley's company took a boat the next day for Governor's Island, arriving at Fort Columbus, N.Y. By then Linsley suffered from sick stomach and severe pains in his head and neck. From Fort Columbus on 17 Dec. Linsley went by troop train to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., finally reaching Aquia Creek, Va., where he met up with his brother, who had been made a clerk in his regiment. Benjamin Linsley began his correspondence from camp near Falmouth, Va., which he reached with the sick and wounded by 20 Dec. 1862.

Linsley lamented General Henry W. Halleck's conduct during the recent Battle of Fredericksburg (12-15 Dec. 1862), a Union defeat under General Ambrose E. Burnside, and his own invalid condition which had so far prevented his from seeing any battle action. Linsley addressed all of these letters to his friend, Mrs. Lucy G. Palmer at Suffied, Conn. In Mar. 1863, Linsley recounted nursing his brother through a severe fever in the field hospital at Falmouth. His brother, who served with the U.S. Army's 10th Connecticut Volunteers under Brigadier General John Gray Foster in the Goldsborough Expedition of 1862, had earlier also been slightly wounded in North Carolina at the Battle of Kinston on 14 Dec. 1862. After he recovered, Linsley's brother rejoined his regiment for further action farther South.

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