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.
Linsley himself fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville (1-3 May 1863), vividly describing the night crossing of the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers on 27 April 1863, the confusion of the Confederate entrapment of the Union forces under General Joseph Hooker, Burnside's replacement, and Hooker's retreat back across the Rappahannock (6 May 1863). After this experience Linsley was again marooned in the hospital with neuraligia. During this time he observed camp life intently and wrote and impassioned letter deploring the lack of a statesman and military leader for the Union army, who could be as inspirational as George Washiington was for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
By 6 Aug. 1863 Linsley was moved to McKinnis Hospital in Baltimore, Md. From there he reported that it had been more than two months since they all departed the camp at Falmouth, Va. marching to Warrenton Junction. Linsley had contracted, and was recuperating from, his own bout of typhoid fever. He had fallen out of the long summer march to Warrenton, Va., and, finally, stricken seriously ill in the intense heat, was taken from Ashby's Gap, Va. by train to the military hospital at Baltimore.
From the guide to the Inventory of the Benjamin M. Linsley Letters Ragan MSS 00110 ., 12 Dec. 1862-6 Aug. 1863, (Cushing Memorial Library, )
