Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -

Sale 2708 - Lot 76

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CIVIL WAR--OHIO.) Letter and papers regarding the transport of an Ohio sergeant's body home from Chickamauga for burial. 4 items: letter, invoice, postal cover, and trade card; various sizes, mailing folds and minimal wear. Nashville and Chattanooga, TN 16 February 1864 and undated
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Additional Details

Sergeant Jacob R. Sterrett of the 11th Ohio Infantry was mortally wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga on 20 September 1863, and died a month later. With more than 4,000 fatalities at the battle, nearby undertakers must have done a brisk business in getting those bodies back home. Here, undertaker W.R. Cornelius of Nashville, TN write to Sergeant Sterrett's father Samuel in Christiansburg, OH, four months after the death. He offers a quote "to disinter the body, furnishing a good metallic case, boxed and delivered to the express co. ready for shipment at Chattanooga" for $95.00. Freight would be $7.55 from Chattanooga to Nashville, $15.00 from there to Cincinnati, and $5.00 for the final hundred miles.

Also included is the $95.00 invoice from Cornelius's agent in Chattanooga, on a billhead captioned "Undertaker for government and Dealer in Metallic cases." The trade card of W.R. Cornelius is also included, noting his agents in seven Tennessee towns, noting that the bodies were "embalmed by Dr. Holmes' American Process," and that he "will attend to procuring and expressing bodies to any point." This was clearly a routine part of his business as the war heated up in the western theater.

Sergeant Sterrett was buried in Elizabeth, OH on the family plot, where the stone remains today.

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