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Estimate: $ 250 - $ 350
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--NEW YORK.) Rice, Oliver. An officer describes poor morale in the last weeks before British evacuation. Autograph Letter Signed as Lieutenant in the 4th Massachusetts Infantry, to brother Colonel Jonathan Rice of Sudbury, MA. 3 pages, 13 x 8 1/2 inches, on a folded sheet; moderate dampstaining, seal tear slightly affecting text. (JMR) "Mount Misery (alias) South Redoubt" [Garrison, NY], [November 1783]
Stationed on a lonely mountaintop across the river from West Point, Lieutenant Oliver Rice (1752-1836) complains that "the wretched remains of the virteous army are very anxious for their own dessilution . . . I believe our fate is fix'd for the winter unless the British evacuate New York." Rice mentions the discharge of furloughed troops on 3 November, and anticipates the British evacuation which began on 25 November. His description of the fort is classic: "Am sitting in a small room, the ceiling of which is compos'd of mud and straw, in lieu of boards. The chimney sends forth the smoake like a cloud into it. It's neither proof against wind, rain or snow. I have had all these this fall, already for companions. . . . The d___d smoak puts my eyes in such pain, I can't read or copy this scroll."
