(CIVIL WAR NEW YORK) Letters to a Cayuga County woman on Li

Sale 2615 - Lot 102

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Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

(CIVIL WAR--NEW YORK.) Letters to a Cayuga County woman on Lincoln, Douglas Hospital and more. 11 letters, various sizes; condition generally strong, most with original envelopes. Various places, 1850-1870 and undated

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These letters are addressed to Mariette J. Remington (1836-1908) of Ira and Weedsport, NY, west of Syracuse. She was the daughter of an iron foundry worker, and married farmer Frank W. Putnam in 1861. Some of the letters have interesting Civil War content. Her cousin L.B. Sprague of the 138th New York Infantry wrote in December 1862 while a patient at Douglas Hospital in Washington, the Union's most elegant hospital, located in the fashionable Minnesota Row townhouse once owned by Stephen Douglas. A cousin named Annie wrote from Medina, NY in April 1865 to describe the local memorial arrangements for President Lincoln in church, with "a photograph of Lincoln draped with crepe and a large crepe bow . . . It looked so mournful I could hardly help weeping."

In 1866, a sister-in-law named Bess wrote from her new home in frontier Gillford, MN: "Here I am in our own little cabin. We have been keeping house one week. . . . I have never worked so hard in my life as I did this summer, but it's for ourselves."