(CIVIL WAR NEW YORK) Correspondence of a young soldier frie

Sale 2380 - Lot 93

Price Realized: $ 531

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

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(CIVIL WAR--NEW YORK.) Correspondence of a young soldier friend of Smithsonian curator Spencer Baird. 8 Autograph Letters Signed from Frederick C. Hale to his parents, plus an Autograph Letter Signed and telegraph message from Spencer Baird to Frederick's father Safford E. Hale. Various sizes, condition generally strong. Vp, 1862-64

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Frederick Churchill Hale (1844-1921) of Elizabethtown, NY was a private in the 118th New York Infantry, known as the Adirondack Regiment. For several months he was detailed to serve as the head clerk for the entire Army of the James. Frederick's father Safford E. Hale (1818-1893) was a prominent physician who had befriended the founding curator of the Smithsonian Institution, Spencer F. Baird, who had visited Elizabethtown in the 1850s. Frederick was first able to secure a pass to visit Baird on 20 November 1862: "I enjoyed my visit at the Institute very much. It is the best worth seeing of any place I ever saw. . . . Mrs. Baird offered me a bath & I accepted of course." Several other letters mention the Bairds.
Also included are two letters from Baird to Safford Hale. The first is a telegram dated 24 March 1863, reporting simply: "Fred'k quite well and on duty. Dined him yesterday." The second is an Autograph Letter Signed dated 2 November 1864 on Smithsonian letterhead. Baird had attempted to secure easier duty for his friend's son, but was unable: "There is however now no such thing allowed as the transfer of a well soldier from the district to where his regiment belongs to another district. Ask Fred to let me know if by any cause he is sent to any hospital north, and I will look after the transfer." Frederick survived the war (possibly with a little help from his prominent friend), and became a prominent attorney in Chicago.