Mar 20 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2697 -

Sale 2697 - Lot 372

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(SLAVERY.) William W. Rockwell. Union officer's letter with a biographical description of his formerly enslaved servant. Autograph Letter Signed as "W.W.R." to his mother. 8 pages, 9½ x 7¾ inches, on 2 folding sheets; mailing folds, minimal wear. Ship Island, MS, 11 April 1862
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Additional Details

This letter was by William Walker Rockwell (1839-1863) of Pittsfield, MA, who served as Captain of Company I in the white 31st Massachusetts Infantry. He wrote it on Ship Island, a long barrier island off the coast of Mississippi, which had recently been seized from the Confederates. More than a page is devoted to a description of his formerly enslaved servant:

"I was so fortunate as to secure the services of one Josiah Jenkins, a contraband from Florida, on my arrival, & as he is an adept in cooking, he works in well. Joe (as we call him) has had an eventful life. Born a slave, he has had a hard experience. He has been sold twice, once for $1500 & once for $1700. Trying to escape from his new master he was chased by bloodhounds & captured, & after capture, tried & whipped, the mementoes of which he carries to this day, scars on his back as broad as three of your fingers. He has married once & sold from his wife, less than eight months after that event, & carried 200 miles down the country. Was hired out last fall on board a schooner, captured by a Union gunboat, taken in to Philadelphia & set free, hired out a gain in another vessel & came to Ship Island, where after a month's sojourn, he fell in with Capt. Rockwell, & now has the pleasure of waiting on said individual. He has quite an attachment for me, & I think will follow me back to Mass. If he does, he will make a sensation." Rockwell goes on to describe another camp servant named Walters who challenged Joe to a footrace, and "Joe took the purse, in spite of his short legs, for he is about as long one way as another."

20 months after writing this letter, Captain Rockwell succumbed to disease in an Army hospital. We have not been able to trace the fate of his free servant, Josiah Jenkins.

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