Report from the Front Lines

Sunday, July 3, 1864

The Thirteenth New Hampshire endured an intensely hot week in the trenches along the Appomattox River. On Thursday the Confederates shelled their position for nearly an hour with forty to fifty rounds of artillery per minute, and the Thirteenth was lucky to report only one minor injury from the barrage. During the week it was noted that the Army of the James had suffered casualties of 6,903 men killed, wounded, and missing since May 4, and that the Army of the Potomac had suffered 61,400 casualties for the same period. Today the Thirteenth moved along the left of the line to a temporary position halfway between Battery Five and Petersburg.¹

References:
¹S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 : A Diary Covering Three Years and a Day (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888), 419-423.