(CIVIL WAR RHODE ISLAND) Blanchard Henry T Letter and cover

Sale 2533 - Lot 105

Price Realized: $ 228

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

Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400

(CIVIL WAR--RHODE ISLAND.) Blanchard, Henry T. Letter and cover featuring engraved views of Camp Brightwood. Autograph Letter Signed to his parents and siblings. 4 pages, 10 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches, on one folding sheet of letterhead with engraving titled "Camp Brightwood, 2d Rhode Island, Col. Frank Wheaton, Comd'g" by L.R. Rosenthal; folds, minimal wear. With original cover featuring the same engraving on verso, addressed to Erastus Blanchard of Providence, worn and with stamp clipped out. Camp Brightwood, DC, 1 December 1861

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After suffering very heavy losses at Bull Run, the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry spent the winter at Camp Brightwood, DC, where they built Fort Slocum in honor of their fallen colonel. The neighborhood is still called Brightwood Park, and Fort Slocum Park remains a local green space.
The author of this letter, Henry T. Blanchard (1841-1864), describes Thanksgiving dinner in camp ("we had all we could eat of turkey & roast pigs") and losing out on a promotion to sergeant for overstaying his leave by ninety minutes. On the letterhead, he has marked the locations of several tents and provided a key below. He eventually became a sergeant and survived most of his three-year term in this hard-fighting regiment before his death at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864.