(RECONSTRUCTION) Woodworth Charles L Letter describing a fre

Sale 2471 - Lot 334

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Estimate: $ 250 - $ 350

(RECONSTRUCTION.) Woodworth, Charles L. Letter describing a freedmen's camp in North Carolina. 8 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on 2 folding sheets; minimal wear. Amherst, MA, August 1865

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The author spent more than two years in the south as chaplain of the 27th Massachusetts Infantry, often working in freedmen's camps, and after the war dedicated himself to raising money for the freedmen through the American Missionary Association. This letter was written to an unidentified Sunday School class, asking them to donate to the cause. He describes at length his efforts to distribute clothing in Washington, NC: "The mind never conjured to itself such a mass of living humanity as jostled itself in the long hall around my door. . . . Such a multitude of them were nestled in the shanties & cellars & garrets of the town . . . a ragged, starving populace making merry with suffering, & counting no price too great to pay for freedom . . . weeks in the woods & swamps, making their way to our lines, & all that they may be free." He describes several of these clothing recipients in detail--a young woman carrying a baby, a pair of orphaned sisters, an old man who proclaimed "I'se old, Massa, I'm worn out, I no be able to work now, I'se had a mighty hard time."