Nov 21 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2687 -

Sale 2687 - Lot 107

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CIVIL WAR--WEST VIRGINIA.) Philander B. McQuiston. Letter from the Western Virginia campaign: killing a stray Confederate colonel. Autograph Letter Signed to unknown recipient. 8 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on 2 folding sheets; folds, minor foxing. Near Hawks Nest, Nicholas County, WV, 18 October 1861
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Additional Details

Philander Boyd McQuiston (1830-1915) of Dixon, OH was a private in the 47th Ohio Infantry. He soon found himself in General Robert Latimer McCook's brigade of Ohio regiments, cautiously encircling Robert E. Lee's new army in the hills of what would soon become West Virginia. This letter mainly describes the skirmishes, reconnaissances and observations around Sewell Mountain starting on 23 September.

McQuiston describes at length the killing of a Confederate lieutenant colonel. In some ways the story resembles the death of John Augustine Washington III, but we believe the unnamed deceased officer was James Willett Spalding of the 60th Virginia:

"One evening a lieut col of the Rebels too ride out to air himself when he came on to our pickets eating their supper, when two of them picked up their guns and steped out of bushes. When the col. asked them if they was Jeff Davis's Confederates and drew his revolver and fire at them, when one of one fire at him and shot him. He fell forward on his horse and then raise himself up straight in the saddle. When the other one shot him and fell back on his horse with head to his horsetail, and the letters and things that was in pockets fell out. In one of the letters was found plan to surround us, and miniature of his wife."

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