Sep 29, 2022 - Sale 2615

Sale 2615 - Lot 189

Price Realized: $ 2,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(MEXICAN WAR.) Henry D. Page. A dramatic first-hand account of an American soldier's capture, near-execution, and escape. Autograph Letter Signed to B.B. Clark of Franklin, NH. 4 pages, 10 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches, on one folding sheet; partial separations at folds, first page cross-written. With separate worn postal cover sheet bearing inked "Vera Cruz, Mexo Nov 5" and "X" inked stamps. National Palace, Mexico City, 25 October 1847
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An exceptional battle and imprisonment letter. Not many people in any circumstances survive to write this line: "They began to rig a gallows to hang us."

Henry D. Page (1821-1891) of Franklin, NH, a clerk in the army's pay department, writes to a friend back home with a harrowing war story. He found himself in Puebla far from the front lines on 12 August, waiting to join a reserve unit, when "a party of Mexican lancers come about the town and stole about 50 mules. . . . We thought we would go out and drive them off and retake the mules. On arriving at the yard, we found a party of about 40 Mexicans. . . . Our party consisted on 35 men all told, made up of clearks of the different departments, some teamsters, some waggon masters. We all volunteered for to go. . . . Thay then retreated. We followed them as fast as posible, killing about one every rod. We followed round a hill when we came in contact with about 400 mounted men. . . . We were surounded and cut up in a most shocking manner. Out of 35 men, but 6 war left alive. 3 of them made their escape by running through the woods. . . . Myself and 2 more war taken prisoners and taken to the Mexican camp." Page was stripped of his money, watch, hat, and "evry thing but my panterloons and shirt. . . . About 3 o'clock they began to rig a gallows to hang us." When one of his comrades made an attempt to escape, his own guards became distracted. "I thought I mite as well be shot as hung, so I started to run and made for some long grass that was close by. . . . I looked and saw 2 men looking for me. I could not move for fear of being seen. . . . They come within about a rod of me. . . . I herd a gun go off and I supose the man that tried to run away was shot, but it was the means of saving my life."

Page somehow made his way back to Puebla and helped bury 20 of the dead men from his impromptu unit. Then he was rushed out to join the final campaign on Mexico City. He arrived in time for the Battles of Contreras and Churubusco, but was too worn out from his exertions to fight, so he was assigned to hospital duty: "I was helping the doctors dress the wounds of the wounded, and we had a bisey time of it, I tell you. I help Doctor Head cut off 123 lages and 94 armes in them 2 days. . . . It was a most horrible site. . . . Harder battles I supose was never fot in any country. . . . On the morning of the 20, Gen'l Scott formed his army in line of battle and told them that the thing must be don sooner or later, and it mite as well do it at once. . . . It would do you good to see the Mexicans fall in the street, we would fill our cannon full of grape shot and fire and bring about 20 every time. Our army don well, beginning with the 19th of August and ending the 14th of Sept., this army has gallantly fought its way through the fields and forts of Contreras, San Antonia, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and the gates of San Cosme and Tacubaya into the capital of Mexico."