(CIVIL WAR OHIO) Thomas Hine Letters on Missouri skirmishes

Sale 2633 - Lot 68

Price Realized: $ 406

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

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(CIVIL WAR--OHIO.) Thomas Hine. Letters on Missouri skirmishes, the Siege of Corinth, and the theft of an Alabama girl's Martin guitar. 7 Autograph Letters Signed totaling 22 pages to his sister and parents, plus an unidentified carte-de-visite of a soldier in uniform taken in Chicago; one letter with separations at folds, another with staining, otherwise minor wear. Various places, 1861-1865

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Thomas Jefferson Hine (1838-1897) was born and raised in Ohio, and as a young man married and went west to Tipton, Iowa. He enlisted in the 39th Ohio Infantry in July 1861.

The first two letters were written with the regiment in the always-tricky Missouri theater: "We ware favered with the presients of Gineral Sigles, Gineral Smith, Prince Napoleon & others with their body guard (on dress parade last evening). They cut quite a dash, I tell you. . . . We are going on boats to Quincy and then back in Mo. where the rebbels have been burning bridges, and will return here when we get them cleaned out" (6 September 1861 from Camp Benton in St. Louis). The 23 March 1862 letter from New Madrid, MO details the long efforts to take Island Number Ten in the Mississippi River: "We have become perfectly acquainted with the roaring of the canon since our arrival at this plaice. First they ware spiting out their thunder at us, but we soon stoped that."

Hines resigned his position as corporal to become the bass drummer in the regimental band. On 13 June 1862 he recounted the Siege of Corinth: "Our regt was plaiced in a very much exposed posision and evry shell that flew over my head I would hug the ground about as close as I ever did before, for dear life. I find it to be a very grait help to be well versed in the art of huging."

On 29 April from Decatur, AL, he wrote about "my guitar I captured at Athens, or rather that was captured through my instrumentality and pay of $5.00. I gave my Black boy $5.00 to steal his young mistres guitar, and it is a Bird, one of Martin's best stile. It is a star. I value it at one thousand dollars." The C.F. Martin Company began producing guitars in 1833 and remains one of the most popular brands. His final letter was written on 7 August 1864 from a camp near Atlanta: "We can see Atlanta from where we are, but I fear a promenade through the streets would not be a healthy one."

With--13 post-war family letters, most to Lizzie Hine of Mount Washington, OH, 1877-1900. One is from a cousin teaching at the Indiana Asylum for the Feeble-Minded in 1880 ("I am afraid sometimes that I taught bright children too long to please myself in this work"), and one is from Thomas Hine in 1882, now farming in Willow Island, NE. A young niece wrote a long letter in 1889 from a ranch in Tuscarora, NV.