Sep 17, 2015 - Sale 2391

Sale 2391 - Lot 29

Price Realized: $ 3,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1775.) Grant, Alexander. Letter from a British corporal in occupied Boston. Autograph Letter Signed to his father, 2 pages, 12 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches, plus integral address leaf; address panel badly stained and soiled, with an inked postal marking still visible, otherwise moderate dampstaining and wear. (MRS) Boston, 19 August 1775

Additional Details

This soldier describes America as "this troublesome country . . . which is turning out a greater war than ever was in Europe or America before." He reports that the King's army is "still in hot war every day" and gives the casualty figures for "the last engagement we had at Charlestown," adding that "their encampment is within a mile of ours, which we being so weak of men now that the enemy has the flower of the country under themselves that we can't get a bit of fresh provision." He is hopeful that upon the arrival of reinforcements, "then begins the game. We are every day in some fray or other, but we are in expectation of overthrowing the enemy, and then the country is our own."
The letter's author identifies himself as a corporal in the 22nd Regiment, and the nephew of Major Robert Grant, who later died in the 1777 Battle of Hubbardton.