On July 23, 1861 — 150 years ago — Daniel Boyd wrote his father to tell him about the actions at Mitchell’s Ford on July 18 and the Battle of First Manassas on the 21st. Of the horror and carnage inflicted on the Union army, Daniel has this to say: “… whilest there lay the poor wounded all amongst the dead and these spent the night amongst the dead and the groans of dying, many unable to move whilst others scramble and crall trying to comfort each other by each others presence. No friend to care for them, no one to give them a drink, no one to dress their wounds, all there friends have died and gone.”

Then he laments: “Oh civil war where will your lessons stop or have an end…”

He talks of the rain the day after battle and the wounded being left behind from their fleeing army: “The poor wounded; just think of them one whole day and night in the rain.”

Daniel further writes of the 7th South Carolina’s participation in the pursuit of the routed enemy following the battle and found himself in Vienna, Virginia where he wrote this letter.

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