Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 108

Price Realized: $ 13,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
"THE BULLETS WHISTLED SOME, SO DID THE SHOT AND SHELL" (CIVIL WAR--PENNSYLVANIA.) King, Frank. Extensive archive of letters by a member of the Bucktail Regiment. 86 war-dated Autograph Letters Signed to his future wife Martha Bell (1832-1921); various sizes and conditions, with most in very strong condition, a small number being torn or incomplete; with 3 other war-dated letters to Martha from other parties, 8 pages of post-war notes on his service, 6 pension documents from 1881-82, and other papers. Vp, 1861-65
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Additional Details

Francis John "Frank" King (1838-1903) was a native Englishman from a Quaker family with a gentle wit and a keen eye for detail; his only vice was tobacco. Before the war he worked as a clerk in Smethport and Ceres in McKean County, PA. Early in the war he enlisted as a private with the renowned Bucktail Regiment, which was officially designated as the 42nd Pennsylvania Infantry. King's education and neat handwriting led to his service as a regimental clerk. In 1864 he transferred to the 190th Pennsylvania, where he was appointed Sergeant Major.
King was blessed with a positive outlook; he spent four years predicting that the war would be over very soon. Even so, he was jarred by his first taste of real combat, at the Battle of Dranesville: "I saw one man who had been shot through the neck & the blood was running down his coat; this awakened me to sense of my situation & a very queer sensation ran through me. . . . I regained my self composure & what little fear had gained possession of me left entirely. I lay with a perfect indifference as to my fate, with balls & shell whistling over our heads. . . . Col. Kane told us we had now the opportunity we had been so long looking for & says he 'Shall we give them a little licking & let them go? Or shall we give them a big licking?'" (26 December 1861).
The Bucktails served at Gettysburg: "We have been on the march every single day (except when fighting) for the last fifteen days, and such a march! . . . The day we crossed into Pa., we started at daylight in the morning and marching thirty two miles did not camp till 3 o'clock the next morning. We were up by daylight again and marched to Gettysburgh & fought the same day. I helped carry off a couple of wounded men going right in the rear of our regiment whilst it was fighting. I tell you, the bullets whistled some, so did the shot and shell" (9 July 1863). King also played a part at the infamous Battle of the Crater: "I was roused out of bed at midnight the night before & had to go the whole length of the line afoot in the dark, a distance of over a mile, to give notice that the mine would be sprung, also that an attack might be expected on our front. . . . Such a tremendous cannonade I never heard before. The discharge of so many pieces of heavy artillery at once made as much noise as the blowing up. It is a great disappointment to us all that it should turn out to be a failure after all" (4 August 1864).
King survived two terms in Confederate prisons: June to September 1862 in Belle Isle, VA, and August 1864 to March 1865 at Salisbury, NC. None of King's letters were written from prison, but his 30 September 1862 letter was written shortly after his parole: "I would much rather tell you my Belle Isle experience than write it. A sorrowful tale truly, I assure you; and all newspaper accounts I have seen are not one whit exaggerated." The collection also includes an 1864 letter from one of King's prison friends to Martha stating that her beloved was alive, and in an 1882 draft affidavit, King describes the devastating effect that his incarceration had on his health.
King was opposed to slavery, but was surprised to meet a slave in Falmouth, VA who claimed that "he had no desire to be free; that his master clothed & fed him well and used him kindly. If all slaves were treated like him, it would not be so bad, but we know that they are not" (2 May 1862). One highlight of King's service was his regiment's appearance at a grand review for the president and General McClellan: "Lincoln took my eye more than all the rest. Although not handsome he has a kind, attractive expression on his countenance, which anyone seeing cannot help but revere him" (25 November 1861). Overall, this is a substantial archive, the largest collection of an enlisted man's letters we have offered in many years.