Sep 15, 2011 - Sale 2253

Sale 2253 - Lot 135

Price Realized: $ 7,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
EN ROUTE TO LITTLE BIGHORN WITH CUSTER (CUSTER, GEORGE ARMSTRONG.) [Michaelis], Otho E. Letter from an officer with Custer ten days before Little Bighorn. Autograph Letter Signed as "Otho" to "Darling Sunshine" (his wife Kate Woodbridge Michaelis). 4 pages on 2 sheets, 8 x 5 inches. On board the Far West at the mouth of Powder River, MT, 15 June 1876
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A letter written by an officer on the Custer expedition ten days before Little Bighorn, discussing the movements of Custer's 7th Cavalry and an incident where the regiment's final outgoing mail bag was nearly lost in the Yellowstone River.
Otho Ernest Michaelis (1843-1890) was a career United States army officer then serving as captain and chief of ordnance under General Terry. He was also a talented chess player who once beat the great Paul Morphy. His letter home displays no anxiety about the coming battle, and reported on military movements which were still going according to plan: "Custer with the 6 remaining companies of the 7th Cavy left this morning by land for the mouth of Tongue River, where we expect to meet Reno with the others cos." The biggest drama in camp was the mail-bag incident: "On the 12th the mail we sent was put onto a yawl boat from the steamer at the stockade, and in some way the boat upset, and our man was drowned. Our letters were swamped, but all survived, and Mr. Kellogg the Herald correspondent picked them up. . . . He told me he remembered my 40-page letter to you. I hope you will get it."
Captain Michaelis would arrive at Little Bighorn on 26 June with the rest of General Terry's command, the day after the massacre, where he helped identify bodies on the field.