Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 251

Price Realized: $ 2,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(CIVIL WAR--CONFEDERATE.) Correspondence of the Rev. William Gwynn Coe, a Methodist minister on Virginia's occupied Eastern Shore. 8 manuscript letters, various sizes, generally minor wear. Vp, 1862-64
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

In January 1861, the Methodists of Accomack County, VA on the Delmarva Peninsula resigned from the Methodist Episcopal Church and its perceived abolitionist taint. Rev. William Gwynn Coe (1832-1877) was found to serve as their pastor. The Eastern Shore fell under Federal control early in the war, and Coe seems to have suffered harassment as a secessionist. Offered here are letters to and from Coe during the years of the war. Three of the letters were written by Coe in February 1862, seeking readmission to the Baltimore Annual Conference, followed by a 10 March letter from Lieutenant Charles Bird: "Please find enclosed letters sent from Balt, which will not be allowed to pass through our lines, by a recent order from War Dept." On 15 April 1864, Coe received a letter from parishioner J.W. Tyler in Onancock: "I hear the garrison chappel brethren have employed you & that you intend returning. . . . Your coming back will keep up a border strife whereas it will soon wear down. If you could only join the P. Conference we would be exceedingly glad." On 10 June 1864 he drafted a letter from Belle Haven in Accomack County to Lieutenant James Lord, complaining that "Threats have been very freely circulated for our intimidation . . . our public worship is in one or two places entirely suspended in consequence. . . . I have preached largely over 2000 sermons, many of which were preached in my present locality during its blockade & before the federal forces occupied it" but he never once did "mix up any allusion to politics with the solemnities of religious worship, albeit there have been many & great inducements of a worldly sort to do so."
Offered with this collection, though it may not be related: a short letter to a Rev. Granbury from a committee of North Carolina officers at the winter quarters of Cooke's Brigade: "We most respectfully request you to deliver a lecture (the subject and time of delivery to suit yourself) before the Soldier's Christian Association of this brigade," 27 April 1864.