Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 126

Price Realized: $ 2,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(CIVIL WAR--MASSACHUSETTS.) Samuel Thompson. Letters on the Emancipation Proclamation and Colored Troops, and a Lincoln sighting. 3 Autograph Letters Signed to his sister and brother-in-law James McClatchey of East Attleboro, MA. Each 4 pages, various sizes; minor wear, paper clip stains. With typed transcripts and one envelope with stamp removed. Various places, 1861-1863
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Samuel Perry Thompson (1840-1913) was an Irish-born jeweler in Attleboro, MA when he enlisted in the 7th Massachusetts Infantry. A month later on 21 July 1861, he wrote from Camp Old Colony in Washington: "We stopped before we came to Baltimore and loaded our guns so that we should be ready for any attack, but there was no need of it. . . . We marched to the place where the Massachusetts 6th was attacked, and there we saw the bullet holes in the depot and in the house sides. . . . We slept in the Capitol that night on the bare floor which is made of marble. . . . We had a visit from the President of the United States and part of his cabinet. They are all good-looking men. Old Abe walked up and down the line when we was on dress parade. He is a large strong-looking man, rather thin in the face. He looks just like the pictures you have seen of him, and I here he spoke very highly of the regiment."

On 13 November 1862 in New Baltimore, VA, he laments the removal of General McClellan from command, and adds, "I hope the President's proclamation will have a good effect on this war. As it is, the backbone of slavery is broken & if they let it alone, it will die of itself disgusted, or disgusted of itself."

On 15 February 1863, he wrote from a camp on the Rappahannock: "There has been hundreds of acers cleared 7 the people of Stafford County will have some fencing to do after this war is over & it would be a good place for Old Abe to try his skill at splitting rails." He asks "What do you think about the Negroes coming out here taking the forts to garrison while the whites takes the front. That is spreading it on rather hard. . . . They ought to make the Negroes take the front, for I think if it has come to the sticking point, if they want their freedom, they certainly ought to risk them & make them do something toward it, seeing we gave them a good chance." He recalls: "We got such a severe shelling over the river at Fredericksburgh, when the shell came flying thick & fast amongst us, ther was not a man that opened his mouth unless it was to ask God to have mercy on his soul. . . . When I was lying close to the ground & the missiles whizzing over my head, I thought if I should be spared to get out, I would try with the help of God to live a new life, for the battlefield is a poor place to repent."

Thompson survived the war, continued working as a jeweler, married, and raised a large family in Attleboro.