On April 9, 1865, just hours after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and for all practical purposes ended the Civil War, the Eleventh Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment charged across a hellish field of abatis, snarled debris, and ravines loaded with landmines. Their target was Fort Blakely, Alabama. A needless assault (20,000 against less than 2,000) that took only minutes to complete, cost the Eleventh Wisconsin 61 casualties,…

Another letter we were not able to ID the soldier and also a good letter: In Camp twelve miles from Richmond May 25 Dear Mother, I last wrote from West Point. I mentioned this so you may know whether you received all. The papers probably keep you better posted concerning our movement than is possible for me to do as I can know but little of what takes place outside…

We were not able to enter this into the database without a soldier ID, but it is an interesting letter from home to a soldier from his wife. Dear Husband, I mailed a letter to you the morn before I received yours of the 24th but I was so bothered with the baby and the neighbors running in that I did not think of half that I wanted to write…