Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 319

Price Realized: $ 406
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
ACTING COMMANDER OF HALLECK AND SHERMAN (MEXICAN WAR.) Official correspondence of Captain Christopher Quarles Tompkins. 8 manuscript items, each 9 3/4 x 8 inches plus integral blank docket leaf; light mount staining from an old binder, otherwise minimal wear. Vp, June-July 1846
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Christopher Quarles Tompkins (1813-1877) was a Virginia native and West Point graduate who commanded Company F in the 3rd United States Artillery in the Mexican War. One interesting item in this lot is a copy of a letter to 1st Lieutenant Henry W. Halleck (later the General-in-Chief of the Union Army during the Civil War), in which Colonel Joseph Totten assigns Halleck as the engineer attached to a military vessel bound for Mexico, 22 June 1846: "You will forthwith report yourself for the duty to the officer in command of the troops, namely Lieut. Chas. Q. Tompkins of the artillery, whose orders in the line of duty you will obey." Also offered here are a contract in which James Ord agrees to serve as the regimental assistant surgeon, 13 July 1846; and 6 official letters relating to Tompkins's service dated 18-27 June 1846, all signed (either in the letter of as a docket) by Adjutant General Roger Jones (1789-1852). In one of these letters, Jones copies Tompkins on a 20 June order: "First Lieutenant W.T. Sherman, 3rd Artillery, is temporarily attached to company F, now under orders for distant service, which he will join at Fort Columbus, New York, with the least possible delay." In a note to the 23 June letter, Jones explains: "I call you captain because there is now a vacancy. . . . Your promotion was sent to the President today." Thus, Tompkins briefly had under his command both Halleck and Sherman, who would later become two of the leading generals of Union forces in the Civil War--while still just a first lieutenant.