Jun 21, 2018 - Sale 2483

Sale 2483 - Lot 45

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"THE RECRUIT HAS BUT ONE ARM, A PERFECT BURLESQUE UPON A SOLDIER" PARSONS, SAMUEL HOLDEN. Autograph Letter Signed, "Sam. H. Parsons," as Brigadier General, to Deputy Commissary of Prisoners Ezekiel Williams, complaining of recruits sent to the army directly from a prison camp. 2 pages, 8 1/4x6 inches, on a folding sheet with integral address leaf; moderate edge wear with slight loss of text, seal tear with loss to the blank, moderate toning. West Point, NY, 11 March 1778
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

"A number of persons in your care, prisoners of war, have been bound to inlist in our service against the resolutions of Congress & to the great detriment of the service. Those who have joined here I have ordered back to your charge under a proper guard. When they arrive, the clothing rec'd I desire you will take from them & return to some commissary or the reg't they inlisted into, as they can by no principles be intitled to cheat the public out of the clothing as well as individuals of their [bounty] money they were simple enough to give them to inlist. . . . The persons recruited were incapacitated to become soldiers. I have also sent back a man inlisted & sent on by Capt. Hayes of Ashford. The recruit has but one arm, a perfect burlesque upon a soldier. I wish you to inform the gov'r of this & such like practices too often gone into by the recruiting officer of the state."
The patriot Samuel Holden Parsons (1737-1789) of Lyme, CT, is sometimes credited as the first to propose a Continental Congress, and became a general in the Continental Army.