This envelope, or cover, is addressed to Enos D.
Hanger, a private in Company D, 5th Virginia Infantry.
This regiment was part of the renowned Stonewall
Brigade commanded early in the war by General Stonewall
Jackson. Enos Hanger was a farmer in Augusta County,
Virginia, when he enlisted at age eighteen on February
4, 1864. During his short time in the field, he
participated in two major battles, the Wilderness
and Spotsylvania Court House. The Stonewall Brigade
was part of Major General Edward Johnson’s division,
and it was this division that helped to build and
protect the famous salient at Spotsylvania known
as the “Bloody Angle.” The fighting there
on May 10 and 12 was unusually vicious and hand-to-hand.
During a lull in the battle, a 5th Virginian walked
over the field and noted: “The dead and wounded
lie thick. The field is covered with things left
by Yankees in their retreat, many of our boys supplied
themselves with blankets, boots, paper and envelopes.”
Enos Hanger was wounded during the Spotsylvania
fighting. In early June he was sent to a hospital
in Richmond where he died of his wounds that summer.
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