The collection consists of a letter from Union soldier Charles W. Sleeper, a private and later Quartermaster Sergeant with the Massachusetts 7th Light Artillery, written to his cousin on August 24, 1862, from Yorktown, Va. The letter includes detailed discussion of the Confederate defenses in the area, miserable conditions at the Yorktown camp, the prevalence of illness among the soldiers, and other details of the Yorktown area, including mentions of Revolutionary War sites.

Sleeper writes, “Out of the 130 men in our co., there are now 56 on the sick list. ... I can bear to see the poor fellows brought in that have been shot, but the slow lingering work of disease still has its untold horrors" and "The roads are all of them badly cut up, and innumerable mules and horses are lying by the sides with the turkey buzzards hovering over them or gorging themselves upon the filthy messes."