Manasas Junction
VA July 23d
1861
Dear Mother, It is impossible for me to tell you how I feel this Morning. You have no idea how rough a soldier’s life is. I am truly glad Jo was at home for I know he could not have stood what we have all went through since we left Raleigh. It has been now ten days since I slept in a tent. It is impossible for me to tell you all. I suppose you have herd of the Battle we all were in. What an awful time; I hope I may never witness another such a scene. There was fifteen killed out of our regiment, two out of our Company, several wounded, I don’t know how many. Pasely White had Both arms broken, Bridge Tompson was shot through the arm.
I will now have to begin again, for as I was writing the revile was beat for us all to fall in for inspection of Arms. It was a sobrin [sobering?] thing to hear the rool call this morning. Simpson & James Stewart were killed on the battle field. When we left Raleigh we went to Winchester from there where they were expecting a Battle. We stayed there one day when we received orders to march by forced marches for this place. We had to walk for a distance of thirty miles; did it in a day and a night without anything to eat. We arrived at this place Sunday morning about 8 O clo after marching all night. We herd the Cannons roaring. We doubled quicked it for a distance of about 6 miles to the Battle field without any watter or anything to eat; I paid a negroe 25 cts for a canteen
full of muddy watter.
We were drawed up into a line of battle in the edge of a piece of woods to wait untill it came our time to act; that was the most trying time that ever I witnessed. The Cannon Balls and grape Shot were flying over our heads as thick as hail. The wounded men were passing by, some with legs some with arms shot off. 3 of our men fainted while we were standing there. At last the word was given: “forward Boys, the day is ours!” and everyone rushed forward untill we came in fireing distance of the enemy, when they turned loose upon us. We reserved our fire untill the smoke cleared and then the Command was give to fire, we stood there and and that is about all I know, only that I came out safe. Bridge Tompson is going home and will carry this letter.
You must write to me. I never wanted to hear from home so bad in all my life. You must remember in your prayers it is all owing to a mercifull providence that I was not killed. I had my Bayonet shot off. Pray for me that I may yet get home safe. Mother dont you let Jo come yet for a while even if he is well. But some how I have been think-ing that Jo never would get well; I dont know what makes me think so but it does seem so.
John White is well
Good By
Mother
Contributed and transcribed by Bernard and Catherine Hylands
Some information provided by the Hylandses:
The letters are attached, together with my transcripts, in which I have added some missing punctuation to make them easier to understand, although I have not corrected spellings or wrongly-capitalized words.
By way of explanation, the Jo that John William Bason refers to is his brother, Joseph H Bason. It seems John was right to be concerned because Joseph did in fact join up (same company as John), but died of typhoid fever in August of that year. John, on the other hand, continued to serve until he was captured at Rappahannock on Nov. 7, 1863. He was released in 1865 and went on to live until 1922. He is buried in Hawfields Presbyterian Church cemetery, NC.John Trollinger was John’s first cousin, and the grandfather referred to would have been their mutual grandfather Trollinger.
The two things that strike me about these letters are the raw human emotion that John describes in going into battle, and the very helpful list of names he gives of men in his company (a historian’s dream!). It was these that allowed me to discover who the writer was, because to begin with all we had was letters written to “Mother”, with no signature. It only took a few hours of searching on the internet and comparison with family records (one of my wife’s great grandmothers was a Bason) to work out the identity of the author.
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
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