Thursday, May 26" 1864

I received a letter from Kate.  She is very anxious about her brothers in the army, as we all are.  Mr. M^cLean has gone to the battlefield sent by the Christian Commission of Pittsburg.  He has a son in a Pennsylvania regiment in the army of the Potomac.  Mrs. W. D. & Mrs. B. C. Bailey here at prayer meeting.  Grant’s army are across the North Anna.

Kate Dawes McLean

Ephraim Cutler Dawes

Rufus R. Dawes

Rufus wrote to his wife:

Line of Battle, May 26th, 7 A. M.

The hot firing of yesterday has died down this morning to only about ten or twelve shots a minute.  We are confronting the enemy precisely as at Spottsylvania, when your father visited me, except that our lines of battle approach each other more nearly.  It is raining steadily.  I have a little shelter tent with logs piled up at the end toward the enemy to stop bullets, and I lie on the ground as I write.  I presume General Grant will not make an assault upon the enemy in their entrenchments.  They get stronger in men as we get nearer Richmond, and their works are probably as elaborately prepared as those at Spottsylvania.  Our battle on Monday evening at Jericho Ford is probably as severe and general as any that will be fought on this line.  The repulse of Butler has a material bearing upon the situation here.