Sep 28, 2017 - Sale 2455

Sale 2455 - Lot 81

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
"THE DEAD YANKEES . . . HAVE NEARLY ALL BEEN DUG UP BY OUR MEN" (CIVIL WAR--CONFEDERATE.) Lewis, [James Kent?] Letter by a Confederate soldier describing the desecration of Union corpses. Autograph Letter Signed "K. Lewis" to his father. 4 pages, 8 x 5 inches, in pencil on one folded sheet; moderate soiling to first page along folds, short closed separation along one fold. Manassas Junction, VA, 25 November 1861
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One of the more gruesome letters we've seen, describing the use of soldiers' bones as jewelry and souvenirs at the Bull Run battlefield. The author, a Confederate soldier in the first months of service, is clearly disillusioned by the low character of his comrades.
"I was on the battleground a day or so ago. It presents one of the most horrible sights I ever saw. The dead Yankees who were buried there have nearly all been dug up by our men. Nearly all of them have a bone of some sort hung to his watch chain & they have sent home any number of skulls. Some of them took the rib bones for pipe stems. I saw one body deprived of its head and the limbs lying in a branch. The flesh seemed to be perfectly sound. . . . Several of our N.C. greenhorns have been garrotted and robbed already, they have 40 Louisianans in the guard house now for stealing. I was already sadly disappointed in the Army of the Potomac. They are well drilled but they are the infernalest set of rascals I ever saw. Talk of divine providence watching over such a set of villains. More like the Devil does, for they are his chosen ones. I put no confidence in men who won't let their enemies bones rest in their graves. Who ever wars with the dead won't do for the battlefield."
This letter was credited by its original cataloguer to Private James Kent Lewis (1838-1863) of the 16th North Carolina Infantry, and we have no reason to doubt the attribution. At least one of his other letters has appeared on the market; he later died at Gettysburg. He was the son of Meriwether Lewis, apparently no close relation of the explorer. Provenance: Purchased from dealer Len Rosa circa 1996.