Mar 31, 2011 - Sale 2241

Sale 2241 - Lot 114

Price Realized: $ 900
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
"IF I SHOULD BE KILLED IN BATTLE . . ." (CIVIL WAR--NEW YORK.) Chamberlin, Leander. Manuscript diary by a private in the 141st New York Infantry. 168 pages of diary entries, 16 pages of other memoranda, one drawing. 12mo, contemporary calf, moderate wear; dampstaining on first few pages. Vp, 15 September 1862 to 15 February 1864
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Leander S. Chamberlin (1835-1907) grew up in the little hamlet of Meads Creek in Steuben County, western New York. He married Sarah Dennis shortly before enlisting in the 141st New York Infantry in 1862. The regiment did not see as much combat as some others, but did more than its share of hard marching. After a fellow soldier died of fever, Chamberlin wrote "Today we baryed one of our boys, the first out of the company. Who will be next, God only knows" (3 November 1862). Chamberlin's company lost ten men to disease and accidents in the sixteen months of his diary.
After spending its first year in Maryland and Virginia, the regiment took a long train ride to the Chattanooga area, where they played a role in the Battle of Wauhatchie: "The Rebs shelled us from Lookout Mountain but done us no damage. . . . The whole camp was ordered out except the guard when a sharp engagement ensued in which the Rebs were completely routed" (28 October 1863). This was followed by the Battle of Lookout Mountain: "Worked all night laying up breast works, marched nearly all day around to the left to get in the rear" (25 November 1863). Then came a long, circular, and ultimately pointless month of night marches in pursuit of the rebels: "Arrived at our old camp in Lookout Valley just before sundown, hungry, tired, ragged, lowgy, and almost worn out with the fatigue of the last 4 weeks" (17 December 1863). They suffered greatly from inadequate supplies. For the next month, many of the regiment were excused from routine duty due to scurvy or lack of proper shoes. On 20 December Chamberlin wrote "Clothing came tonight but not enough. I got nothing."
Homesickness was Chamberlin's greatest challenge. After four months of service, he wrote "As I walk along I think of my home and the dear ones that are left there. Do they think of me, me a soldier boy far down in Virginia?" (25 January 1863). On 10 April, he wrote "Received a letter from home, Sarah had got a girl." He then went back to his 7 April entry and noted "My little girl was born today." As he shivered in winter quarters in Tennessee, he wrote "It seems almost like a dream when I think of it that I am the father of a dear little daughter now ten months old, but such is a fact, and I have never yet seen her" (1 February 1864). He sent his diary back home with a furloughed officer soon afterwards.
Chamberlin's story had a happier ending than many Civil War diaries. Although his regiment later saw heavy fighting in Georgia, he was mustered out at the end of the war without any serious injuries, and went home to his wife and little daughter Leanna Frances. with--a cabinet card of Chamberlin's commanding officer, Col. William Kenneth Logie, a Union College graduate who was killed at Peach Tree Creek, GA in July 1864.