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(A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER ASKS HIS DAD TO SPRING HIM FROM PRISON): An interesting pair of letters re...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:300.00 - 400.00 USD
(A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER ASKS HIS DAD TO SPRING HIM FROM PRISON): An interesting pair of letters re...
(A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER ASKS HIS DAD TO SPRING HIM FROM PRISON): An interesting pair of letters related to efforts to get John Woodbridge Bosworth, a family friend of Stonewall Jackson, released from captivity at fort Delaware. A graduate of V.M.I., Bosworth served as an officer in the 31st. Va. On March 25, 1865, he was captured while taking part in the Confederate assault on Fort Steadman. Bosworth's letter, which is accompanied by the original transmittal envelope (stamp removed) reads, in part: "... Fort Del. Off [icer's] Barracks, Division 35, May 18, 1865...I expected when I wrote you some time since to have now been at home, but still I am here, and with no prospect...of soon getting away from here without the intercession of friends. The Government has not yet acted in the case of prisoners and when it will is very uncertain. I have written to Gen. E. B. Tyler, but have yet no reply...I am very impatient to get away. It will and must be unhealthy here soon, owing to the number confined within such [a] narrow boundary. Try if you can get me out by special release. This is being done every day... I need not say I am desponding. You know my condition. I need not say more...". The second letter, which due to the shortage of paper in the South, is written on the verso of a prewar marriage license application, is a 1p. 4to. unsigned draft, in which the elder Bosworth requests that his son be freed. Apparently the letter worked, for the official record indicates that the son was discharged from Fort Delaware a few weeks later. With the exception of the lightness of the ink in the father's letter, which is still legible, in very good condition. $300-400