Re: 10th Al. Inf.
I only have complete copies of the 20 April and July 1863 letters of Charles W. Foust. The 20 April letter to his father mainly contains personal information. He mentions that he and Clinton [David Clinton Foust] were in "very good health" and that the men had been getting only two meals a day for "some time past." The July letter is missing the first page but describes the battle of Gettysburg. Foust mentions that on the evening of 2 July the Ambulance Corps, a detail consisting of two men from each company, were busy carrying the wounded off the field and were allowed to do their work unmolested by the Union pickets. He relates how an unidentified soldier of the 10th had told the Yankees that his thigh was broken and they allowed the Confederate Ambulance Corps to come and carry him away. They brought him back into their lines after daylight only to discover the man was perfectly fine -- a successful ruse on his part! Foust also describes how their Colonel [William H. Forney] was wounded in four places, the last breaking his right arm where it had been broken previously, and that he was left in the hands of the enemy. Foust describes the cannonade on 3 July, the 10th being about "100 yards in rear of our batteries, behind a hill." The men made another unsuccessful charge which "did not effect any good and fell back again to our position ... lost about 161 men in killed, wounded and missing and a good many badly wounded." Foust noted that a "good many of our boys are barefooted and their clothes are pretty weel (sic) worn out ..." In his 3 October letter, Foust recalled that "Clinton followed after us into (Pennsylvania) and got with the company about two days before the fight commenced ... and was wounded very slightly."