Dec 01, 2011 - Sale 2263

Sale 2263 - Lot 100

Unsold
Estimate: $ 200 - $ 300
THE REGIMENTAL SURGEON WAS A HOARDER (CIVIL WAR.) Eisenlord, Alonza M.F. File of correspondence relating to his appeal for back pay. Contemporary manuscript transcript of 14 letters from Eisenlord to Lorenzo Thomas, Edwin Stanton, and finally Abraham Lincoln, 10 pages on 5 sheets. Washington, DC, 1862-63
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Eisenlord was the regimental surgeon of the 7th New York Infantry, a German-American regiment also known as the Steuben Guard. He weathered several efforts to have him removed from his post. This file documents his efforts to receive a year of back pay which his officers had withheld, including his long letters up the chain of command all the way to the President Lincoln. Eisenlord claims that his only offense was being a native-born American among the German officers, and that he "refused to give them spiritous liquors & dainties for their consumption." A recent book titled "Tarnished Scalpels: The Court-Martials of Fifty Union Surgeons" provided the other side of Eisenlord's story. He was convicted of hoarding cases upon cases of supplies in his tent--sugar gnawed by rats and moldering cheese--while his recuperating soldiers subsisted upon salt pork.