Nov 21 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2687 -

Sale 2687 - Lot 27

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1780.) Jonathan Bagly. Letter describing the Massachusetts troops as "almost starveing" from lack of supplies. Autograph Letter Signed to daughter Dorothy Cushing and son-in-law John Cushing of North Yarmouth, MA. Two pages, 9 x 7 inches, plus integral address leaf; folds, lacking part of address leaf, minor wear and dampstaining. Boston, 23 September 1780
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John Bagley (1717-1780) had been a colonel in the French and Indian War. Here in the final months of his life, he describes a visit to the Massachusetts legislature and the desperate efforts to supply the state's troops.

"I am now here at court. . . . The supplys of the armey is one who is almost starveing, no money in the treasury, and no provisions to be purchased without it. After setting two weeks the court last evening come into a resolve to supplye the army by calling upon every town in the state to send forward to Springfield a certain quantaty of beef every month." He also recounts the defeat of Horatio Gates at the Battle of Camden: "Our southern army under Gen'l Gates are all cut of baggage & artilerey togeather with all the Continentalls except about 20 that made their escape with the Gen'l." He also notes the expected assault on Rhode Island by Admiral Rodney's fleet.

With--10 other letters to John Cushing (1741-1812), later of Royalston, MA and Freeport, ME. It includes an 1802 letter from the long-tenured Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John Avery, announcing Cushing's selection as state senator; and an 1812 letter from Bowdoin College president Jesse Appleton concerning an invitation to preach in Freeport on the Sabbath. Various places, 1785-1812.

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