Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -
/

Sale 2708 - Lot 67

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(CIVIL WAR--MISSOURI.) Correspondence of Clinton Fisk on the formation of 33rd Missouri, including a manuscript recruiting circular. 21 manuscript items in one folder (11 telegrams sent, 9 letters received, and one contemporary transcript of recruiting broadsides); mount remnants suggesting removal from a scrapbook, one letter defective, otherwise minor wear. St. Louis and elsewhere, 1862-1863
Request Condition Report Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Clinton Bowen Fisk (1828-1890) was raised in Michigan and moved to St. Louis shortly before the war. During the Civil War, he led the formation of the 33rd Missouri Infantry, a.k.a. "The Merchants Regiment" in the Union Army, and served as its original colonel. With his efforts to expand his recruiting into a "Merchants Brigade," he became a brigadier general in November 1862.

This lot includes 11 of Fisk's retained outgoing telegraph messages from the recruitment period, 6 to 30 September 1862. Several are to Fisk's agent in Washington, DC, Henry Moore. On the 12th he writes: "My St. Joseph regiment will be full by the fifteenth. . . . General Isbell of Perry County writes that he will guarantee many men from his county, led by his own son." On the 24th he asks Moore to "look after the arms for the entire brigade. Will forward requisitions. . . . Prospects glorious, shall forward the second regiment to the field next week, third more than half full."

The collection also includes 9 letters to Fisk. 5 letters are addressed to him from this recruitment period, 19 to 30 September 1862, some from local merchants offering financial support, and one from Lieutenant Joseph W. Brooks, who was later killed in action at the Battle of Helena. 4 letters were sent to Fisk after the 33rd Missouri took the field, October 1862 to October 1863. One is from a mother pleading for her hospitalized son; two are personal letters from Sergeant J.W. Wells of Company F, reporting on company news. From Helena, Arkansas on 17 October 1863, Wells writes: "The guerillas have likely attacked our patrol pickets and driven them in. I cannot think there is any force of rebels in the vicinity, although the gunboats have been shelling the woods above here."

The highlight of this lot is a manuscript copy of two regimental recruitment broadsides, on one page. One was issued over the name of Colonel Fisk: "Fall In, Men! The Thirty Third Missouri Volunteers, For the War! The Merchants Regiment, headquarters for recruiting service established in Union Merchants Exchange Building, one door south of the Post Office, St. Louis . . . Liberal provisions will be made for the families of men who enlist in this regiment." Written beneath it is the text of another broadside over the name of recruiting officer Captain J.G. Hudson: "Soldiers Wanted! No More Talk! Fight Now and Talk Afterwards! Large bounty. The Merchants Regiment, 33d Missouri Volunteers. Good able-bodied men wanted to make up a company. . . . Headquarters of the company at Jefferson City." A letter on verso explains why these copies were produced. A soldier named Benjamin Capps had apparently never received his promised bounty, and sought help from the "men of the Union Merchants Exchange": "I herewith transmit to you coppys of both of the handbills under which I enlisted. . . . We think we are justly entitled to bounty money, and I wish you to inform me to hoom to apply for it if you please. Gentlemen, you can see plainly that the government has nothing to do with this matter according to the handbills." Medora, Osage County, 21 June 1863. We cannot trace any other examples of these recruitment broadsides or their text, so we thank Private Capps for his service.

Also in This Catalogue