(CIVIL WAR NEW YORK) A sergeant describes being nearly murd

Sale 2517 - Lot 71

Price Realized: $ 219

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400

(CIVIL WAR--NEW YORK.) A sergeant describes being nearly murdered by a fellow soldier in his own tent. Autograph Letter Signed to his wife. 4 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on one folding sheet; folds and minor foxing. With the original worn patriotic envelope featuring a view of Fort Monroe and reading "Come back here, you black rascal." Camp Lochiel [Georgetown, DC], 5 July 1861

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Sergeant James Reid (born 1835) was a Manhattan malt-maker and liquor dealer who volunteered for service in the 79th New York Infantry. Reid was in more danger here at camp: "I nearly got my life taken by one of our company last Wednesday. Two of our men got fighting in our room and I, being the only sergeant present, went to separate them, when one of them turned and dragged me to the floor. . . . He got a musket and bayonet and made at me to run me through, but one of the 6th Company wrenched that from him, and then . . . a companion of his came behind me and cut my head open with a metal canteen filled with water. . . . They will be tried for attempting the life of Sergt. J. Reid, which crime is punishable with death." Reid not only survived this incident, he would soon survive Bull Run and lived to muster out in 1863.