Lieut. Warren H. Parmenter, Co. D, 2nd New Hampshire Infantry, On the Battle and Retreat

The following is an extract of a letter from Lieut. Parmenter of the Dover Company, to a friend in this city:

Washington, July 24th, 1861

I suppose by this time you have heard all about the great battle at Manassas, but you must not believe more than half you read. We received orders Saturday night to get ready to march at 2 o’clock and we started and traveled until 10 o’clock, and the first thing we knew of the rebels was a volley of musketry and a discharge of grape and canister. We were then drawn up in a line and such a shower of bullets you never read about as we received, and we returned them as fast as we could. At that time our Colonel was shot in the shoulder, and a great number of soldiers, but very few badly hurt. This was the first volley that was fired at them. – We then move to the centre and gave them another pop, and fell back to give the big guns a chance, and they did a good deal of damage and drove them from their battery; but we had not force enough to back up our line and they came back and started the big guns on us again, and we went round to the left and came up in rake with their battery and rifles. I thought we were in a hornet’s nest to hear the bullets fly around my ears. We staid there about half an hour and then returned, but every other regiment had left before us, even the U. S. Cavalry, which were put there to cover our retreat. So you see we were the first on and the last off the field, and by that time a regular stampede had commenced. Away they went, pell mell, army wagons, private carriages, horses, infantry and artillery, all together. I started for the hospital where Capt. Rollins was, he being shot on the field sometime before. We got him and the Colonel into the ambulance and started for camp, two miles below Centreville; it was nearly dark. We came along several miles until we reached Bull’s Run, when they opened a masked battery on us. We left the ambulance and started again for camp, which we reached about ten o’clock, laid down about fifteen minutes, and then were ordered to Washington, which we reached Monday afternoon, having marched and fought nearly forty-eight hours with nothing to eat but pilot bread, so hard that it was almost impossible to eat it, and nothing to drink but water we got from the puddles along the road side. We lost from our regiment, killed and wounded, about 40 men. There is missing from our Company, six, but I am in hopes some of them will come in yet.

Dover (NH) Enquirer, 8/1/1861

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Contributed by John Hennessy

Warren H. Parmenter at Ancestry.com 

Warren H. Parmenter at Fold3