?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
"THEY PUT EVERY PERSON TO THE SWORD" (SARATOGA CAMPAIGN.) TYLER, JOHN STEEL. Autograph Letter Signed, "J S Tyler," as Major of Jackson's Additional Continentals, to his commanding officer Colonel Henry Jackson then in Boston, reporting on the loss of Fort Montgomery and the status of the regiment. 3 pages, folio, on a single folded sheet; seal hole affecting several words on the final page, moderate foxing, text slightly faded. [Camp near Hartford, CT], "Fryday 17" [October 1777]
Tyler reports on the British savagery at the recent Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery: "You know by this time of the loss of Fort Mont'y taken by the enemy with about 60 prisoners. . . . Its a been reported that they put every person to the sword. . . . Fort Constitution fell into their hands but not before the stores where car'd of." He also discusses the regiment's march to Valley Forge: "What think you of your reg't joining Genl Washington? Praty uncertain at present wether we shall meet him this fall." Tyler's proposed plan of march for the regiment is described and sketched in some detail (illustrated). Tyler also reports that the regiment (soon to be named the 16th Massachusetts) is "in good order barring the com'y difficulty such as the soldiers being a little in liquor, some a little troublesome, but I may call them a good reg't & under good com'd." When told three of his men were caught "breaking the windows of a poor widow," Tyler "had my whip in my hand & the first I fell upon was Bryant who had it well laid on, which he carry with him to this day on his back & will forever." Tyler also reports at length on Lieutenant Colonel David Cobb, a physician and Harvard graduate who served as commander of the regiment in Jackson's absence: "He thinks mildness & lenity will effect what corp'l punishment would not. . . . In him is united the soldier & scholar."
