Sep 26, 2019 - Sale 2517

Sale 2517 - Lot 176

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(POLITICS.) Correspondence of treasury agent William B. Moore, including documents signed by Generals Grant, Sherman and Burnside. 37 manuscript items and one pamphlet, "Roster of the Living Members of the Second Illinois Cavalry," sleeved in one binder; condition generally strong. Vp, 1862-84
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Additional Details

These letters and documents mainly relate to the efforts of William Bowen Moore (1836-1902) to secure government posts and promotions in the years following the Civil War. A native of New Jersey, he served as an adjutant in the 2nd Illinois Cavalry during the Civil War, and lived in Austin, TX and the District of Columbia afterward, working as a treasury agent with the Internal Revenue Service. Along the way, he gathered some very powerful friends, which is what makes this lot interesting. Most notable is an Autograph Letter Signed by ex-president Ulysses S. Grant, a letter of introduction to a railroad official calling Moore "a very competent man in many ways, as a writer both for penmanship & composition, for executive ability &c", 29 December 1879. A manuscript copy of another Grant letter of recommendation is dated 1877: "Maj. Moore enjoyed the full confidence of officers at my HdQrs long before I was elected president," endorsed on verso with the signature of William T. Sherman: "I have often heard Genl Grant speak of Major Moore in high terms, and know that generally during the war Major Moore was held in high estimation," 21 October 1878.
Other notable autographs include future vice president Levi C. Morton, 1880 Civil War general Edmund J. Davis, 25 September and 3 December 1869 Congressman Roscoe Conkling, 19 July 1878 General and governor Ambrose Burnside, May 1872, in addition to several other congressmen and generals. Many of the letters are written to or from Texas. The earliest letter in the file is dated 14 July 1862 on Executive Mansion letterhead, and is signed by President Lincoln's personal secretary William O. Stoddard.