Jun 27, 2024 - Sale 2675

Sale 2675 - Lot 96

Price Realized: $ 469
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
(CIVIL WAR--MAINE.) Samuel Cony. Letter seeking furloughs for exchanged Maine prisoners and the dismissal of General Banks. Autograph Letter Signed as Governor Maine to Senator William Pitt Fessenden. 3 pages, 10½ x 8 inches, on official letterhead, with docketing on final blank; mailing folds, separation along main fold Augusta, ME, 2 May 1864
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This letter from Maine's wartime governor to the state's United States Senator William Pitt Fessenden is full of Maine military talk at the highest level.

The first issue is the senator's son Francis Fessenden, then serving as colonel of the 30th Maine Infantry: "Since I saw you, your son Col. Frank has had some more battle experience. From accounts, I think he has well earned promotion. . . . My letter recognizing Col. Frank you will use as & when you choose." This favor from the Governor to the Senator may have proved useful. Frank Fessenden was promoted to Brigadier General eight days later.

Unsurprisingly, the Governor has a favor to request in return, although it is a selfless one. Maine soldiers who had been exchanged out of Confederate prisons were being held at Camp Parole in Maryland. Secretary of War Stanton had allowed paroled soldiers to return to Maine on furlough. The Governor hoped to extend those furloughs as a general practice: "They cannot do duty in any [event], & while at home the gov't saves their rations. Mr. Stanton was very polite & very kind to me when at Washington, owing in part to your good offices & I do not wish to annoy him with any unreasonable requests. . . . I want it so broad as to cover men who had been furloughed before I went to Washington (there are a few of those). . . . I ask for an exchange of thirty days unless they are sooner exchanged. . . . Take the sec'y when in a sunny mood. His trials are enough to wear the patience of Job & I don't want to add to them. . . . I enclose Cap. Atwood's card. He was a Libby prisoner & says he does not want to go back to Camp Parole if it can be helped."

Finally, the Governor shares his unfavorable opinion of Major General Nathaniel Banks, a political appointee who had previously been governor of Massachusetts: "What do you think of Banks? Have we not had enough of him? I think so, & hope he will have leave to retire. The Shenandoah skedadle, Cedar Mountain defeat, assault & repulse at Port Hudson, swallow's flight to Texas & back, & finally the catastrophe on the Red River entitle him to retire. Individually, not officially, I think Banks is a humbug, an adventurer, a man destitute of merit or capacity as a soldier. . . . I am sorry he has a Maine soldier under his command."