(CIVIL WAR) Ferguson Cyrus E A regimental musician visits Ma

Sale 2380 - Lot 87

Price Realized: $ 260

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 250 - $ 350

(CIVIL WAR.) Ferguson, Cyrus E. A regimental musician visits Manhattan to buy instruments. Autograph Letter Signed to "dear wife & children." 4 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on one folding sheet; minor wear at folds. New York, 22 January 1865

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Cyrus E. Ferguson (1830-1918) of Cedar Rapids, IA was a musician in the 15th Iowa Infantry. Here he describes a visit to New York to secure new instruments for his regiment, apparently from the renowned bandmaster Harvey B. Dodworth: "I have got my instruments selected & packed at Dodworth's.. . . Our instruments, music & everything will cost us between 6 & $700.00. They are of the first class brass instruments, rotary valve except two second hand instruments that I got, one an A-flat base, the other a B-flat tenor which Dodworth had taken & repaired. I did not expect to get all rotary valves but find that the piston valves have played out & I could scarce have got them in the city. I have been to all the stores pretty much & find the prices to vary but little while the quality does considerably." He also expresses his dislike of the residents in the city's Soldier Home and the city in general: "the most of the soldiers are such stinking, lousy brutes that they don't know how to receive decent treatment nor how to behave themselves otherwise than in their low vulgar profane way. . . . I had rather run a paint shop in Cedar Rapids than be one of the upper ten of NY."