The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-08-01
Saturday Morning, August l, 1863.
Brilliant Exploits Of Down-east Boys.

A private letter IRON Capt. II. w. Furlong
of Co. ID, Maine 9th regiment, addressed to
his father, is published in the Calais Advertis-
er. He says, ave are glad to know that af
ter two years the right man has been found TO
command the Army Of the Potomac, although
the army had great confidence in Gen. Hook
err Under dateo of July 18th, "In the Field"
he writes
Now l must tell you of the raid Company
ID made At4P. NJ. was ordered to fall
my company IN and march to the front out by
the skirimsh line. l there received instruc-
tons that was to make sally on the en-
emys line and gobble some prisoners if
could. When received the orders made
up my mind to myselftha we were going right
straight into eternity. 1t seemed to be per-
feet madness and folly, but had my orders,
and all soldier has TO do is to obey, SO in
structed my men-which, by the way are ev-
cry one heroes--what we had to do, and away
we dashed through our lines and with fixed
bayonets and unearthly yells, at double
quick. we soon struck the enemy. The run
almost exhausted my men as 1t was very hot
and they were in heavy marching order. The
enemy was panic stricken, and we went into
them right and left, each man trying to outdo
the other. The bullets flew thick and fast all
about us but they were so surprised they could
not fire with accuracy. We were under fire
about ten minutes, and strange to say not a
man in the Company received scratch or
man missing. 1t was exciting l tell you. |
only went in with little handful of "a mea
and the result OF the operation was that the
enemy left from 25 to 30 killed and wounded
on the field, most OF whom were killed, as they
wouldn't face about and come toward us the
boys would drop them in their tracks. We
took 80 prisoners and sent them in to the Gen
eral, two commissioned officers among them,
one a Captain and the other a 1st Lieut. We
killed their I'd Lieut.. We took about double
the men we went in with, and killed and
wounded as many, which / think is doing
pretty well for "a men; but the beauty of it
is not a man on our side received the slightest
injury. Some of the boys | believe had their
packs or clothes shot through and lost my
pipe, which believe are the only casualties.
The men that did tins are the ones that Pc
ter Avery said would not fight because they
were raised In Calais. 1t is considered big
thing under the circumstances TO do. and we
get great credit for 1t. After we came back
the General called me and thanked me earnest
ly for doing so well. / told him the credit
was all due to the members of my Company,
and of course i may well feel proud of it. In
consequence OF the scrape you came very
near having only two boys left, for one rebel
had his gun to his shoulder not more than
two PAGES from me, and was just in the act of
pulling the trigger when two of my men,
Corp. w. Weeks and Alexander Hanson,
both saw him and fred which caused the said
Johnnie 20 PROSTATE himself in horizontal
position. They shot him dead. 1t looked kind
OF scaley at the time but its all right now.
r. w. FURLoNG.