Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 91

Price Realized: $ 1,062
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(CIVIL WAR--MASSACHUSETTS.) Papers of Lieutenant Horace Lee Clark, who escaped from Confederate prison. 29 war-date items relating to his service; various sizes and conditions. Vp, 1863-65
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Additional Details

Lieutenant Horace Lee Clark (1844-1897) of Northampton, MA transferred into the 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in 1863, and was captured at Plymouth, NC with his entire company on 20 April 1864. According to a 4-page record of his service in this collection, he was sent to Macon, escaped in July, was recaptured the same day after being betrayed by a fellow prisoner, and was then shuttled between Savannah, Charleston, and Columbia (where he was bayoneted by a guard "for trying to purchase bread across the line after having first obtained permission to do so.") He made a successful escape from Columbia on 15 February 1865, and witnessed Confederate general Wade Hampton's troops setting fire to the city while evacuating.
Highlights of this collection are two commissions signed by Governor John Andrew A January 1864 leave request rejected by General Edward Wild A very worn $50.00 Confederate note of exchange sent to Clark while a prisoner by a fellow officer, with accompanying letter, 14 October 1864 Letter received in prison from a comrade back home in Springfield, 24 October 1864 Bed ticket for the prisoner's hospital in Columbia, SC for "Bayonet W in back", 7 October 1864 2 IOUs for money loaned by Clark to fellow prisoners, scrawled on necessity paper, September 1864 Steamer pass issued for "escaped prisoner", 13 March 1865 Telegraph message sent by Clark upon his discharge, written on a slip headed "Confederate States of America Military Telegraph," 26 August 1865. with--three thick folders of postwar papers relating to Lt. Clark's life in Rutherford, NJ, his pension claims, his career as a watchman and inventor, and papers of his wife Nellie Hubbard Clark (1847-1937), 1866-1920.