Mar 20, 2025 - Sale 2697

Sale 2697 - Lot 282

Price Realized: $ 1,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Letters of a Union surgeon, discussing his "contraband" hospital cook, the Colored Troops on parade, and more. 4 Autograph Letters Signed by Abraham H. Landis to his wife Mary Landis in Millville, OH, each 4 pages (7¾ x 5 inches) on one folding sheet; minor wear and foxing. 2 of them accompanied by the original stamped and cancelled mailing envelopes. Various places, 1863-1864
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"She says she is bound to inhale free air."

These letters were written by Abraham Hoch Landis (1821-1896), assistant surgeon of the 35th Ohio Infantry. He is most famous in history as the father of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), the longtime commissioner of baseball who notoriously presided over baseball's color line for decades. However, the father's letters display a pronounced sympathy for the Colored Troops and contrabands who were playing a large role in the Union Army.

On 26 January 1863, in Gallatin, TN just outside of Nashville, Landis described a hospital scene shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation, in which his hospital cook steadfastly refused to return to her former enslaver: "We have a Black woman employed as a cook whose mistress lives two miles from this place. This morning the mistress came to the hospital and enquired of me for her servant. I told her if her servant was willing to go with her, she was welcome to do so. . . . So I sent to the kitchen for the Black woman, and her mistress coaxed her a long time to go with her, but it was no go. The contraband was set in her way. She says she is bound to inhale free air, de balance ob her days. . . . According to a law of Congress, all slaves who come within our lines are forever free."

His 18 February 1864 letter from Chattanooga describes the daring escape of two of his regiment's white soldiers from Confederate prison. Escaping from near Danville, VA, they were "three months lacking one day on the road" before reaching Union lines: "They were directed to some Union men by the Negroes and by Union men were directed from one point to another until they reached our lines. God bless the darkies. I hope every last ones of them will be liberated before this war closes."

A week later on 25 February he mentioned that "the 14th United States Colored Infantry are in camp here, and a few days ago I went over to their camp to see them drill. They drill as well as white soldiers, and have their camp as neat and clean as any camp in the army. Four generals were on hand to see them drill: Thomas, Johnson, Palmer & Whipple." Landis also jokes about having observed the recent escape of Union soldiers from Richmond's Libby Prison; Union Army observers were certainly not welcome in Richmond at this point in the war.

The final letter in this lot is dated 24 April 1864 from Ringgold, GA, in which he notes the recent execution of several of his regiment's wounded men after their capture by Confederates. He adds: "The Rebs are becoming desperate. I reckon you have heard of the terrible massacre at Fort Pillow."