PEIRCE BENJAMIN Autograph Letter Signed

Sale 2177 - Lot 39

Price Realized: $ 240

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 350 - $ 500

PEIRCE, BENJAMIN. Autograph Letter Signed, to Captain James Anderson, expressing surprise that he had been sent back to the New York line, hoping for his speedy return to Boston, reporting his own travel plans, replying to comments about a new war with England, and speculating on the differing natures of the North and South. 3 1/2 pages, 8vo, written on a single folded sheet; minor marginal staining. "Grove," 25 no month 1863

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". . . The military incapacity of our administration seems to be an admitted fact by men of all parties, but nobody can suggest a remedy. . . .
"You allude to difficulties with England, and the possibility of war with her. . . . [N]o foreign nation can hope to do themselves or us any good by meddling with us in the present emergency. . . . Our cause is 'that of humanity,' it is that of free labour throughout the world. The North is a mass of laborers, hard to organize . . . but full of energy and power . . . . The South is an oligarchy, thoroughly organized . . . and swift in decision. . . .
". . . And when this war is over, and when they shall see how the best part of England and France have aided . . . in our success, we shall be more than ever brothers. . . ."
Peirce (1809-1880) was an influential mathematician and astronomer at Harvard, who helped to establish the observatory there, and who was involved in organizing the Smithsonian Institution in 1847.