819

Future Pres. Garfield Oversees Court Martial of a Union Rogue.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:60.00 USD Estimated At:120.00 - 150.00 USD
Future Pres. Garfield Oversees Court Martial of a Union Rogue.
Lengthy printed Union General Orders, H.Q., Army of the Ohio, "In Camp, Huntsville, Ala.," Aug. 6, 1862, 5 1/4 x 8 1/4, 5 1/2 pp. Lively proceedings of a court martial presided over by Brig. Gen. J.A. Garfield. Charging a colonel of 19th Regt. Ill. Vols. with stacking the arms of his regiment in the streets of Athens, Ala., and allowing his men "to plunder and pillage the inhabitants." With exhaustive recitation of their crimes: "A party entered the dwelling of Milly Ann Clayton, and opened all the trunks, drawers and boxes...consisting of wearing apparel and bed-clothes, destroyed, spoiled, or carried away the same. They also insulted the said Milly, and threatened to shoot her, and then proceeding to the kitchen, they there attempted an indecent outrage on the person of her servant girl. A squad of soldiers went to the office of R.C. David...and destroyed a stock of books, among which was a lot of fine bibles and testaments, which were torn, defaced, and kicked about the floor and trampled under foot...For six or eight hours that day squads of soldiers visited the dwelling house of Thomas S. Malone, breaking open his desk...acting rudely and violently toward the females...Went to the plantation of Malone, and quartered in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females and roaming with the males over the surrounding country, to plunder and pillage...Several soldiers came to the house of Mrs. Charlotte Hine and committed a rape on the person of a colored girl, and then...plundered it of all the sugar, coffee, preserves...Before leaving they destroyed or carried off all the pictures and ornaments they could lay their hands on...Spoiled the parlor carpets by cutting bacon on them, and the piano by chopping joints on it with an axe, the beds by sleeping in them with their muddy boots on...." The officer was found guilty of most charges, and drummed out of the Army, noting that "similar disorders...have marked the course of Col. Turchin's command wherever it has gone." Uniform eggshell toning, light marginal wear, else fine. Orders bearing Garfield's name are very scarce.