Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 252

Price Realized: $ 5,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Orders for an enslaved Black man to serve as pilot of a Confederate naval vessel. 3 Autograph Letters Signed; minimal wear, mount remnants on verso. Savannah, GA, February-April 1864
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Additional Details

These three short letters document the involuntary service of an enslaved Black man in the Confederate Navy. The first letter is from Captain William Wallace Hunter (1803-1892), flag officer of the Confederate Navy's Savannah Squadron, to Lieutenant Joel S. Kennard, Savannah, GA, 13 February 1864: "Enter William (colored) as a landsman for three years or during the years in the naval service of the Confederate States. I hold the authority from John Cunningham (his master). . . . Rate him pilot of the Isondiga at sixty dollars per month."

The following day, Lieutenant Kennard wrote from aboard the Isondaga to Assistant Paymaster D.C. Seymour: "You will rate William Jones (col'd) of this vessel pilot from this date." Finally, the lot includes a short note by William's master John Cunningham dated Savannah, 4 April 1864: "William has permission to draw his own pay."

The CSS Isondiga was a small gunboat which plied the waters near Savannah, GA through December 1864, and was soon after burned to prevent its capture. Jones is listed as a pilot of the Isondiga in "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies," Volume 2:1, page 289, with no notation of his race or condition of servitude.