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The "really magnificent" view from Fort Delaware.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:87.00 USD Estimated At:175.00 - 225.00 USD
The  really magnificent  view from Fort Delaware.
Early letter of Union soldier "R.D.C.," evidently a 90-day soldier, at the soon-to-be-dreaded Fort Delaware, May 25, 1861, 1 A.M., 5 1/4 x 8, 4 full pp. To his aunt. "I write you from the Guard Room, having just been relieved from guard at 12 o'clock. It hardly pays to go to sleep, since I am to go on duty again at 4 o'clock for two hours...The night is one of the most beautiful I have ever witnessed. The moon is at the full, and the view from the wharf where my post is, is really magnificent, so that I was really sorry when I was relieved by the new guard. I was visited on my post by a part of the officers, including our Capt. Gibson (the Commanding officer of the Post)...I was questioned closely but got off creditably. I have been here nearly three weeks and have got quite used to the life of a Soldier, not that I mean to imply that there is much fascination about it. I enter into it as a matter of duty and when I can do so honorably I shall leave it for a more congenial pursuit. I never thought until now that I...could so easily undergo so many privations & so much discomfort...three times only have I slept without my pantaloons; almost every night I turn in, in my overcoat and my blankets...Our present barracks...is a miserable old barn of a place, fitted up with bunks in the most primitive style...We are kept constantly at work - drilling, doing guard duty, police duty...We have four drills a day with the prospect of a fifth. The early morning drill at half past five is artillery practice, as the Guns is the most interesting & instructive. The position of Fort Delaware is a very commanding one and manned with a well drilled and competent garrison it will always be able to prevent any attacking force from passing it. The Fort is situated on the Pea Patch Island at the head of Delaware Bay opposite Delaware City. Fort Mifflin is further up the River in Tinicum Island at the mouth of the Schuylkill. The former is one of the finest structures of the kind in the Country. Ellery is on Guard duty today with me. He has just finished his pipe & turned in for a snooze...." Some postal or handling wrinkles at right portion, light toning on p. 4, else darkly penned in a bold hand, and about very good. Perhaps the earliest substantive first-person account of Fort Delaware during the War to reach the market. The largest fortification of its type in America in 1861, all told it would come to house some 33,000 Confederate and political prisoners, privateers, and convicts. Fort Delaware held most of the Confederates captured at Gettysburg, as well as those who came to be remembered as the Immortal Six Hundred.