Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 113

Price Realized: $ 1,080
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"THE GROUND WAS LITERALLY COVERED WITH THE DEAD" (CIVIL WAR--NEW HAMPSHIRE.) Burbank, Calvin M. Articulate and humorous letters describing Bull Run and Williamsburg. 8 Autograph Letters Signed to cousins Henry and Sarah Gerrish of Mast Yard, NH, two of them on patriotic letterhead. Various sizes; condition generally strong. With 5 postmarked patriotic postal covers, one stamped and 2 of them hand-colored. Vp, 1861-62
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Calvin Morris Burbank (1833-1866) of Boscawen, NH enlisted as a private in the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry early in the war. His first letter to cousin Henry was written a month after the first Battle of Bull Run, enough of a lapse to approach the carnage with some humor: "The only visit I have made was to Bull Run, where although we found the folks all at home, did not have so agreeable a visit as we contemplated. . . . We are not at all discouraged at our late defeat, though I must confess that some of our boys are not so loud in their boasts as before. The music of the whistling of bullets, and the groans of the wounded and dying, are not, to the unpracticed ear, the most pleasant of sounds" (3 September 1861). In the same letter, Burbank also described "the Negroes, last Sabbath, exchanging apples and peaches for old clothes."
The last letter in this lot was written on 8 May 1862. Burbank describes the Siege of Yorktown and the subsequent Battle of Williamsburg, where his regiment played a major role: "Our division, though having sustained the brunt of the battle for six hours, still held their ground. The rebels now made a desperate struggle to break through our centre, and though we were four times driven back and fairly beaten, still we would not retreat. . . . The battle hung in even scale till at four oclock the long expected reinforcements with McClellan at their head came up." The next day, "I went over the battle ground and the sight was awful to behold. In some places for acres in extent the ground was literally covered with the dead. Oh, the horrors of war." Burbank was later badly wounded at Gettysburg, but returned to action. Though he survived the war, he died of smallpox in the following year. See The History of Boscawen and Webster, pages 326-9, for a long account of his soldiering career.