Chaplain William L. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry Autograph Letter Signed on the Battle of Weldon Railroad. ...

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"If they will not give up, they must be crushed... Grant has positive knowledge that Lee is losing men very fast by sickness, overwork and the bullet and when this army is gone there is nothing to take its place. Grant is not a genius & I am glad of it. But he is a great commander and his men believe in him."

Chaplain William L. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry Autograph Letter Signed on the Battle of Weldon Railroad. Ten pages of bifolia, 4.875" x 8", "Near Hatchers Va"; August 22, 1864. Chaplain William H. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry mustered into service with the regiment on September 11, 1862. While encamped in Virginia during the Petersburg-Richmond campaign, Hyde received word of the Union victory at Weldon Railroad. In this letter to his wife, Elizabeth, Hyde elaborates on the victory and his confidence in General Grant. It reads, in part:

"I expect we have this week inflicted a terrible blow upon Lee's Army. Grant made a rapid move a week last Saturday to the north of the James as you have read. So large did it seem that Lee really expected an attempt upon Richmond, a thing which Grant did not hope to accomplish but it drew away so much of Lee's forces from Petersburg that Warren was able to seize the Weldon Rail Road. At first the Rebs succeeded in pushing Warren back, but with frightful loss to themselves, still he held the road. Yesterday beginning about 2am they made seven distinct assaults upon Warren and were repulsed each time with fearful slaughter. This is just as it should be. If they will not give up, they must be crushed and as it is impossible to do it in our overwhelming battle. For Lee will not risk a general engagement it must be done by a series of smaller ones. Grant by his strategy has forced them to fight, to dash upon the earthworks and the results is just as such as ever attended their or our hurling men against earthworks. With the Weldon RR in our hands, Petersburg must soon fall... Grant will come out right in time. He has the greatest military man of the ages, Robert E. Lee, to contended against, a matter which materially interferes with all well said plans but Grant is fertile in resources and by small blows delivered in succession, he will break up the army of Lee. When this is done, the worst is over. And be assured, dark as things look it is being done faster than we have any idea of. Grant has positive knowledge that Lee is losing men very fast by sickness, overwork and the bullet and when this army is gone there is nothing to take its place. Grant is not a genius & I am glad of it. But he is a great commander and his men believe in him."

This letter was published in Jim Quinlan's Armed Only with Faith, a compilation of Chaplain Hyde's correspondence and journals.

Condition: Smoothed folds.

More Information: William Lyman Hyde (1819-1896) was born in Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine, to Henry and Maria (Hyde) Hyde (third cousin to Henry). After attending public schools in Bath, Hyde taught for three years at a military and classical school in Ellsworth, Maine, before entering a program of theological study at Bangor Seminary, graduating in 1848. The following year, Hyde began a seven-year tenure as a minister at Gardner, Maine, and later was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Dunkirk, New York, for a number of years. On May 4, 1852 he wed Elizabeth Rice, daughter of Warren and Mary Webster of Wiscasset, Maine. Hyde resigned his ministry in 1862 to serve as Chaplain of the 112th New York Infantry, a position he held until the end of the Civil War. The regiment was organized at Jamestown, New York, and mustered in for three years-service on September 11, 1862. They participated in sixteen battles, including Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Chaffin's Farm, Fair Oaks and Darbytown Road, Fort Fisher, and the Carolinas Campaign. The 112th New York Infantry mustered out of service June 13, 1865. After the war, Hyde served as a pastor in Ripley and in Sherman, New York, until 1874, when he became principal of the Ovid (New York) Academy and Union School. In 1884, Hyde moved to Jamestown, New York, where he was associated with the Jamestown Journal, of which his son was an editor. In 1866, Hyde published a book, History of the One Hundred and Twelfth Regiment N.Y. Volunteers which remains the only regimental history concerning the 112th Infantry. Jim Quinlan edited and published a collection of his correspondence and journals in 2015 in Armed Only with Faith.