?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
A BLACK CONFEDERATE SOLDIER WRITES TO HIS MASTER Autograph Letter Signed, from Aabram, to his master. 2 pages, 4to (on a single leaf); ink quite faded but legible, creases where folded. Petersburg, VA, 18 February 1865
Aabram was a "teamster", not a soldier. According to historian William Gladstone, this letter is in all probability unique because it is the only known letter written by a "teamster". Aabram was with the 11th Artillery Battalion at St. Petersburg. The 11th was organized in the spring of 1862 into 5 companies. It was dispatched to Richmond and later fought alongside the Army of Northern Virginia. The unit served as infantry at Appomatox and was commanded by John Lane and Allen S. Cutts. Aabram concludes is letter by asking that all correspondence be directed to officer John Lane. The text of the letter illuminates the life of a black Confederate soldier and his longing to return home, "Dear Master, Desiring much to hear from home, I am having a few lines to State that I am well, and doing well. I am driving a wagon in a Georgia Battalion of Artillery . . . I get rations just as the soldiers and draw the same as they do . . . Offer my kindest wishes to mistress and accept the same for yourself. Please write to me and give me all the news at home. Let me know if Massa John has been home since I left."
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