Sep 15, 2011 - Sale 2253

Sale 2253 - Lot 22

Price Realized: $ 1,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(AMERICAN INDIANS.) Elting, Oscar. Letter describing a newly arrived officer's battle with the Apaches, with related cabinet card. Autograph Letter Signed to sister Lavina Keator and brother-in-law Calvin Keator of Rosendale, Ulster County, NY. 2 pages, 10 x 8 inches, on 2 sheets; separations at folds repaired with 1930s postage stamps on verso. Fort Selden, NM, 16 December 1867
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Additional Details

Oscar Elting (1831-1902) was a native of New Paltz, NY who served in the 1st New York Cavalry through the Civil War and then joined the 3rd U.S. Cavalry as a career officer. His first posting as a second lieutenant was to Fort Selden in Apache country, and he was quickly put to the test: "18 days after my arrival here, had a fight with the Apaches which I will briefly describe. At 3 1/2 o clock pm, about 75 attacked a few soldiers guarding a herd . . . within half a mile of this post. My company was quickly in the saddle and in pursuit and after a chase of 15 miles and fighting them in three mountain ravines we recaptured the whole herd, killed 3 Indians and dismounted 13 savages. . . . The last Indian was killed at sundown by a detachment of 5 men under my immediate command, this detachment being the advance party. I secured his scalp besides other trophies. . . . It was a close, desperate and exciting chase, our cavalry fighting them from behind rocks and driving them until night came on."
This lot also includes a cabinet card of a soldier believed to be Elting, found in a frame backed with a later envelope addressed to Elting's nephew Warren B. Keator. Nd: William Howell, New York.