(TEXAS) Collins Thomas P Emotional letter describing life in

Sale 2324 - Lot 316

Price Realized: $ 1,250

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Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400

(TEXAS.) Collins, Thomas P. Emotional letter describing life in postwar Crockett, Texas. 3 pages, 9 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches, on one sheet. Autograph Letter Signed to sister Susan Bliss of Florence, AL; minimal wear. Park Hill [Crockett], 9 January 1866

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Thomas P. Collins (1800-1869) was an Irish Protestant immigrant who became a very successful merchant in rural Crockett, TX before the war. His mansion, Park Hill, still stands today. Here he describes the effect of war on his corner of Texas: "I am nearly used up by the results of the war, little or no money and able to collect but very little indeed. . . . Very few of those who owed me are able to pay me anything, their negroes gone, no cotton, and no money." He had a unique perspective as a southern Irishman: "I wish I had a bowstring around the necks of every Fenian and Yankee on the earth with an engine of a million horse power, not one of them would be alive in five minutes. I was a Union man when the war started, a Houston man, and was willing to try Lincoln & fight the devilish abolitionists in the Union, but now I am southern to the back bone. . . . We are truly a degraded people, and have to be fish, flesh or fowl as our task masters say."