Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 131

Price Realized: $ 1,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(CIVIL WAR--MISSISSIPPI.) John W. Boyd. An officer describes the campaign leading to Vicksburg--and encloses 7 prizes of war. Autograph Letter Signed to brother Jim. 4 pages, 10 x 7 3/4 inches, on one folding sheet; folds, minor wear. Oxford, MS, 6 December 1862
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

This letter was written by John W. Boyd, a lieutenant in the 10th Missouri Infantry in the Union Army. His letter describes the aggressive pursuit of Confederate forces in Grant's central Mississippi Campaign which eventually brought his army into position north of Vicksburg. A sample passage of this long and detailed letter: "Our cavalry had a skirmish with the Rebels. One of our men was killed & 6 of the Rebels, 3 of whom were lying in the woods yet unburied when we passed. That night we bivouacked at Lumpkin's Mills, where the Rebels had been grinding corn in the morning, & which we had in operation for ourselves before midnight." He describes finding a young enslaved woman who had been left behind to die alone: "She was already insensible, but was making a queer sort of noise while the froth was working back & forth through her teeth; her jaws were set, and the rattle in her throat showed she was already beyond human assistance, if any such had been near." He describes homes abandoned in the face of the Union advance: "At the house of a Mr. Owen, there was a lot of quite fine furniture left, among other things an excellent sewing machine, two bureaux rifled of their contents, & a great many books & papers. I walked through the house & picked up one letter. . . . I enclose this letter to you & I want you to put it away in some safe place for me until I get back, as it will be quite a curiosity to me."

With--7 letters taken by Boyd from abandoned Confederate homes, each marked by him with his initials and date: 3 from the home of Washington Owen near Abbeville, MS, dated 1847-1861 and taken 1 December 1862; and 4 from the home of Washington Price near Oxford, MS, dated 1836-1844, and "picked up" 14 December 1862.