"Someday, we will have to whip them."

Sunday ,November 13, 1864, Petersburg trenches.

We have not shot a Yankee in so long, we have forgotten what it is like. Things here are very quiet and have been so for some two weeks. Only in the distance are we able to hear any musketry or artillery and that not very intense. From our immediate front, we have heard only the occasional round or two. We must be careful not to allow ourselves to fall into a false sense of complacency. As long as the Yankees are on our soil, we must remain on our guard.

Somehow we know not, Holton managed to get a copy of a Richmond paper. The news is very good for our arms. Hood is fooling the Yankees in Tennessee. Price is doing the same across the Mississippi. Grant has proved himself an utter failure. We expect to hear news of his being replaced at an early date. Our President has called for a national day of fasting and prayer. The government has advertised for young ladies to be trained as telegraph operators. My, my.

Much of our time is spent improving our works. We work for as long as the weather will allow. The time is nearing when nature will tell us that both sides must retire to our respective works and hunker down until the Spring. We form into working parties under the watchful eye of a corporal or sergeant who does not care for the duty. Our corporal, Flynn, is our watchdog. We try not to offend him. Every so often, an officer of engineers will inspect our efforts along the line. He will not address we high privates. He will only talk to our officers who will then talk to our sergeants and corporals who will gladly inform us of our shortcomings. We will then effect repairs.

Peaceful times or not, we all have to take our turn on the picket line which is opposite their picket line. At the closest point, our pickets are, I figure, only some two hundred and fifty yards apart. When the weather is still, we can hear them talking and I'm sure they can hear us. They have identified themselves as the 39th New Jersey. Someday, we will do battle with them.


I Send You These Few Lines


Newspapers are valuable sources of news to both sides. The papers are a reminder that there is a world beyond the death and destruction of the battlefield. News from the other side of the lines can be quite informative or dead wrong.

Tooms writes that Grant is a failure. Tooms has read a story in the Richmond Dispatch for November 11, 1864. In it is quoted a story from the New York World. The story says, "It is clear that the campaign against Richmond, begun on the 7th of May and continued through six months, has ended in failure. If General Grant dared not hazard a battle last Friday in a position of his own choosing in front of the enemy's works, he will run the risk of attacking them in their works. It is plain, then, that he cannot take Petersburg- which these works defend- much less Richmond." And this from a Union newspaper.

The advertisement for female telegraphers and the call for prayer appeared in the same Richmond newspaper.

The paper is wrong. Hood is still in Alabama and Price is being whipped in Missouri and Arkansas.

The 39th New Jersey was part of the Third Division of the Union IX Corps.