Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 350

Price Realized: $ 1,680
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Enlistment Bounty for Slave Soldier Melby Showell. Partly printed 4to document, accomplished by hand, and a small, check-sized receipt, the latter once attached to the former, a small piece broken off; creases where folded; a small hole where the ink has oxidized, docketed on the reverse of the larger document with two revenue stamps. Baltimore, 1865
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Additional Details

A rare bounty document and receipt for fifty dollars for Melby Showell, a slave who had enlisted in the 7th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops. This document represents an application for an attorney, Daniel T. Orem, to represent Showell's claim for "bounty" and includes a receipt for the money. Where his signature was called for Showell has marked an "X." Signed by Lieutenant Colonel E. Pratt, 7th Regiment, and witnessed by Company Commander John J. Norris and George S. Massey, dated June, 1865. Curiously Showell is not listed in Moebs (Black Soldiers, Black Sailors)