Saturday July 5th [1862]
This has been a most anxious and exciting week and even now I am afraid to boast of the great deeds that have been done, and the fields that have been won by our brave soldiers in the past ten days.
Jackson came down from the valley with a portion of his forces and got in McClellan's rear. We commenced the attack on Wednesday (25th) at Mechanicsville and God has blessed us with a series of glorious victories since then. We have had six or seven bloody battles and the enemy has been driven to the James River near Charles City thirty miles below Richmond. Some of his army have escaped in transports. We still hope to cut the rest off.
It is said that McClellan has shown great generalship in preventing his retreat from becoming a rout. For ten days he has been fighting and falling back with a victorious army close upon his heels.
Everything is in too excited and uncertain a state yet for me to give any incidents of the battle, or even the names of them. We do not know how many of our brave men are killed or how many the enemy have lost. We only know that McClellan's great army of one hundred and fifty thousand men completely equipped and thoroughly drilled has been beaten and dispersed, that we have taken six thousand prisoners and six Generals and hope yet to capture a large portion of his forces. The country is full of deserters and stragglers. Many have escaped to the lower side of the James river.
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