Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 106

Price Realized: $ 219
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CIVIL WAR--WEST VIRGINIA.) Set of 4 postwar affidavits testifying to the disloyalty of Union General Thomas Maley Harris. Autograph Documents Signed by 4 witnesses on 2 sheets, 8 1/2 x 8 inches and 5 1/2 x 5 inches; folds, trimmed, minor soiling. With original envelope addressed to John J. Davis of Clarksburg, WV (no postal markings). Gilmer County, WV, September 1870
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Thomas Maley Harris (1817-1906) was a physician and one of the most prominent Union military leaders from the new state of West Virginia. He served as colonel of the 10th West Virginia Infantry through most of the war, and was brevetted as a major general for his gallant conduct at Petersburg. After the war, he served as adjutant general of the state militia, and was a loyal Republican. He must have gotten on somebody's bad side. These affidavits swear that his loyalty had been quite mixed during the early days of the Civil War. Four different former Confederates from the town of Glenville, WV offered very consistent testimony, most eloquently stated by one R.H. Cottrell, who left "about the last of May 1861 to join the Confederate Army in East Va., and before we left there was some talk of electing Dr. T.M. Harris as surgeon of the company, he Harris alleging and claiming that he was sound and all right, that as the state went, he would go. Harris cheered us on as and advised us to leave, and on our departure, he gave us several pieces of meat and other camp equipments for the use of the company. We believed Harris to be a good staunch secessionist from his action, talk, & conduct." Another ex-rebel stated that the departing supply wagon pulled up to the Harris house and was loaded with provisions, and Harris said "Boys, I will be with you in a few days, I will go as the state goes." The testimony was sent to state representative John J. Davis of Clarksburg, an ambitious Democrat who would soon be elected to the United States House of Representatives. The reputation of General Harris survived this testimony; he spent much of September 1870 delivering speeches for Republican candidates across the state, and this controversy seems to have stayed out of the newspapers. Harris later served as a United States pension agent in Wheeling from 1871 to 1875 before returning to his medical practice. We find no other hint of his alleged disloyalty in standard biographical sources.