Jun 21, 2016 - Sale 2420

Sale 2420 - Lot 108

Price Realized: $ 594
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CIVIL WAR--PENNSYLVANIA.) Furman, Frank J. Diary-memoir of a fifer in the 52nd Pennsylvania. 45, [15] pages of manuscript diary transcripts and memoirs. Folio, contemporary 1/4 sheep, moderate wear; 2 diary leaves and several blanks torn out, otherwise minor foxing and wear, a few doodles on rear blank pages; signed on first page. Vp, covering 1 January 1861 to 28 March 1862 but written circa 1880
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Francis J. Furman (1838-1917) worked variously as an iron moulder, teacher, and farmer in Mehoopany, PA, and was married with a young daughter when the war began. This volume was transcribed by Furman in 1880 from his wartime pocket diaries (see 19 November 1861 entry). He prefaced the diary with a page of autobiography, and also inserted a page of narrative to cover the months just before his enlistment.
The pre-war entries are an interesting look at life in rural Pennsylvania, punctuated by the birth of a daughter on 28 July 1861, and then her sudden death on 8 September: "Lucina nursed her babe which appeared well, but in the morning it was found dead by our side." The next month, when President Lincoln put out a call for additional troops, Furman wrote "Feeling that I was needed & that the call meant me also, I concluded to go & do all that was in my power to help put down rebellion in our land." Furman sold his oxen and hog and left for Harrisburg on 31 October. He noted the intemperance of his fellow soldiers on a couple of occasions, complaining that "some of the soldiers got as drunk as fools & some of the officers were not much better" (7 November 1861), and then on New Year's Day that "boxing with gloves and drinking bad bad whiskey was the extent of their pleasures generally." The regiment spent its first months on the defenses in Washington. The presence of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in hastily improvised camps meant that disease was rampant; Furman notes the deaths of men in his company on three occasions (18 November, 14 and 24 December). Furman also suffered a severe injury: "Ed Finney was camp guard and on being relieved at 12 midnight, he came into my tent to get a little sleep, and threw himself onto my leg while I was asleep, thereby dislocating my left knee. Dr. Woods was called and replaced the joint, but it was very painful" (28 November). Though the knee continued to trouble him, he was able to play baseball in camp when the spring came. On 1 March, he wrote "Made a play ball, and had two or three games at ball play." Three more games were played in the coming days.
This lively and patriotic narrative ends just before the regiment moved to the front. Records show Furman left the army with a disability in October 1862 and settled in Seguin, TX after the war.