Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 83

Price Realized: $ 3,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(CIVIL WAR--NEW YORK.) Letters from two doomed privates in the 109th New York Infantry, one written at the Siege of Petersburg. 21 Civil War soldier's letters (16 from Daniel H. McPherson and 5 from George W. Roe), to Daniel's sister Amy Elizabeth "Libbie" McPherson of Willseyville, Tioga County, NY; generally minor wear; many with original postmarked envelopes (stamps removed). Various places, 1862-1864
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"Every man who shows himself outside our works, draws down upon us a shower of bullets."

Daniel Harrison McPherson (1840-1864) of Caroline, NY near Ithaca served two years as a private in the 109th New York Infantry, from 1862 to 1864. The regiment spent its first 18 months doing light guard duty in the Washington area. Private McPherson complained bitterly about life under military discipline, and was arrested in March 1863 for a disagreement over his furlough. On 21 May 1863 he described a hometown friend in the regiment, Reuben Young, who was hospitalized with erysipelas: "He has been totally blind, but is better now . . . his face is swelled up pretty bad." He discusses the New York draft riots on 29 July: "They had a fine time in New York City & we expected to go there & shoot a few Copperheads as our regt. was the next one booked to go if more force was called for."

Daniel's final letter is dated "In the rifle pits before Petersburg, Va., July 9th 1864," and reacts to the death of his brother-in-law George W. Roe (1831-1864), who was married to Daniel's sister Sarah, and was drafted from the same town in 1863, joining Daniel in the 109th and returning home to die from an unspecified disease on 28 June 1864. The letter goes on to describe the Siege of Petersburg, where a fellow soldier named Jonathan Stamp was badly wounded: "He will lose his arm if not his life. The wound was made by a piece of shell striking his wrist, which it cut about one third off, arteries, cords, bone & all. The blood spurted out every time his heart beat & it was considerable trouble to stop it." The regiment was stationed on the second line, where "the enemy's breastworks & forts tower high above us, where they can watch our every movement & every man who shows himself outside our works, draws down upon us a shower of bullets. . . . The well here where we draw water is in plain easy range of the Johnies & every day more or less is killed there. . . . This morning one of our Negro cooks was killed near the well. . . . Nearly every man who is wounded, let it be ever so slightly, dies. Mortification sets in in about four days & he is gone. There is some kind of green matter gets in the wound, litterly eating a man alive. Whole hospitals are cleared out by it in the course of one day." This was Daniel's final letter in this collection; within a month he succumbed to typhoid fever in a Philadelphia hospital on 2 August 1864.

Also included are 5 letters from the unfortunate George W. Roe to his sister-in-law, August 1863 to March 1864. From Falls Church, VA on 25 November 1863, he describes the Virginia countryside: "The country all about here has been overcome by both armies & is consequently a barren waste. Fences have been destroyed & to the north, east & west from here the buildings have been burned or torn to pieces. Indeed, Virginia as a whole presents one wide waste of unproductive desolation." On 24 January 1864 he predicts at great length "the downfall of the rotten fabric of secession & the restoration of peace to our heretofore prosperous & happy country." His final letter, dated 4 March 1864, describes the botched plan of Union cavalry commander General Hugh Kilpatrick "to make a dash into Richmond, liberate our prisoners there, and if not able to hold it, burn the place & make good his retreat."

WITH--9 civilian letters from this family, 1863-1865.