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(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Letter by mega-slaveowner Stephen Duncan describing extensive Black casualties at Battle of Baton Rouge. Autograph Letter Signed to Charles Palmer Leverich of New York. 3 pages, 9½ x 7½ inches, on one folding sheet, plus postscript on a small slip tipped to the first page, with docketing, address panel and stamp with New Orleans postmark on final blank; mailing folds, minimal wear. No place, 1 September 186[2]
Stephen Duncan (1787-1867) was a Pennsylvania-born owner of 15 cotton and sugar plantations near Natchez, Mississippi. The owner of 2,200 enslaved people, he was considered the second-largest slave-owner in the United States, but opposed secession. When Union troops occupied New Orleans, he was able to re-establish contact with his New York sugar broker Charles Palmer Leverich (1809-1876).
Here Duncan shares information about the recent 5 August 1862 Battle of Baton Rouge: "I understand 400 of the Negroes carried off from the neigh'd of Vicksburg by the Fed'l transports were placed in the front ranks of Gen'l Williams' troops in the Battle of Baton Rouge, & that 157 of them was killed on the first fire. Some 900 were carried off, that have not been heard of." We can find no corroboration that any freed slaves were on the front lines at Baton Rouge, although General Thomas Williams was killed in the fighting. The 1st Louisiana Native Guard, the first organized Black regiment in the army, was not formed until late September 1862.
Duncan was on more solid ground when complaining of Union looting of his properties: "The Feds robbed some of my places of all they could carry off, even to the winter clothing for my people, ready-made garments. A man who has his cotton burnt by his friends & his plantations robbed by his enemies is in a bad way!!!"
