Dear Brother (Jones, June 13th 1862)

1862: Contoocook‘s Burleigh K. Jones writes to his brother following the Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks, VA):

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Burleigh K. Jones was always looking for a new way to make a little extra money; in the years leading up to the war, he writes letter after letter to his brother hatching schemes to peddle buttons, oil blacking, “match lighters”, and other paraphernalia.  The fact that he’s in the midst of combat with the 2nd NH deep in rebel territory does nothing to suppress his entrepreneurial spirit!

Some references & sources for the above panels:

• 
  Primary source = Civil War letters of Burleigh K. Jones @ Hopkinton Historical Society
  Panel #1 above features Burleigh’s carefully penned fraternal salutation.
• 
  The Battle of Seven Pines (“Fair Oaks” to Union soldiers) — At the time Burleigh wrote his letter, the Army of the Potomac was as close to capturing Richmond as it would come for three more years … and about to suffer one of its most crushing defeats & retreats!
• 
  1862 Photograph: “Fair Oaks, Virginia. Rear view of old frame house, orchard, and well at Seven Pines. Over 400 soldiers were buried here after the battle of Fair Oaks” — The foreground is a mass grave… but zoom in on this stereograph & you’ll find several companies of survivors encamped around the houses & in the orchard; could one of these figures be Burleigh?
• 
  “Fair Oaks Station, Va”
• 
  “Chickahominy River, Virginia. Military bridge across the Chickahominy, built by the 15th New York Volunteers under Col. John McL. Murphy” — Swollen with rain, these rivers proved one of Richmond’s most troublesome defenses.
• Burleigh K. Jones @ Hopkinton History’s 2010 Cemetery Walk:
  

13 June 1862