?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
"DIFFERENCE IN POLITICS MEANS LITERALLY WAR TO THE KNIFE" (CIVIL WAR--RECONSTRUCTION.) Atwood, William. Autograph Letter Signed to Henry A. Breed. 12 pages on 3 leaves, with stamped envelope. Envelope is soiled, letter is quite fresh. Vicksburg, MS, 19 March 1868
William Atwood (d.1871) was a lieutenant in the 19th United States Infantry, then stationed in Vicksburg. His letter contains a vivid account of his recent travels in the defeated South. He describes the residents of Arkansas as "long haired, lank, lean and lazy, fonder of whiskey than any thing else in this world . . . and each one carrying a big revolver and knife belted around him"--stagecoach drivers and passengers there were well-armed to protect against "murderers, highway robbers, and horse thieves," and the state was "the Devil's own reservation sure." He also recounted debates in Missouri about whether to secede over the Johnson impeachment. In Mississippi, he notes an incident where a band of African-American thieves ambushed a posse and killed two of them, and a larger force returned the next day to summarily hang seven of the alleged thieves. Atwood's impressions of political discourse throughout the South were grim: "Difference in politics means literally war to the knife. When men of opposite parties meet and commence talking, the chances are revolvers will end the argument."
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