Apr 12, 2018 - Sale 2473

Sale 2473 - Lot 72

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CIVIL WAR--NEW JERSEY.) The Campaign of the Twenty-Ninth New Jersey Volunteers. Letterpress broadside, 12 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches; worn, multiple folds, foxing and moderate dampstaining. Holmdel, NJ: for sale by the author, 1 May 1863

Additional Details

This 26-stanza ballad tells the history of a rather undistinguished 9-month regiment, but has humor and rarity on its side. The regiment did not bathe in glory at its only battle: "While the Battle of Fredericksburg was raging we guarded the track / For the cars had to keep the soldiers in plenty of hard-tack . . . . / Our gallant Colonel went forth in command / 'Till a shell from the enemy struck near in the sand / The sight of the missile filled Applegate with fright / He turned, put spurs to his horse, and was soon out of sight . . . / He would go home in disgrace rather than share a worse fate / Thus ended the military career of E.F. Applegate." The author of these sarcastic verses signed only as "A.H." and "a member of Co. G," and placed himself as a resident of Holmdel, NJ.
One possibility for an author: Amariah Haven Stewart (1818-1902), a Company G corporal from Holmdel who was a farmer and public school teacher in peacetime. Joseph Felcone suggests a more likely possibility: Andrew E. Hunter (1843-1918), a private in Company G, which was recruited in Holmdel. We trace no other copy of this broadside in OCLC, in Felcone's New Jersey Broadsides, or elsewhere.