LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 Oct: The Luhrs Collection #9675  / 

61080

Three Letters Home by a Union Soldier

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:75.00 USD Estimated At:150.00 - 250.00 USD
Three Letters Home by a Union Soldier
<B>Three Letters by Union Soldier William W. Hawkins,</B></I> total 12pp., 5" x 8", written circa 1863 sending home news of camp life. In a letter dated Jan 6, 1863, he writes: "<I>...There has been a talk here that Burnside was a going south with part of this Army and Hookes was agoing to take his place that would be apt to put us into a Brigade...</B></I>" In a letter written at South Mountain Turners Gap, dated July 14, 1863, he writes about robbing corpses: "<I>...he is on the gain a little yesterday we took him over the old Battle ground here he met one of the Boys carring with the Thigh Bones of a Rebs Leg he was agoing to make rings of it ... Arch pulled a lot of Tenth out of one of the Skull Soldiers are hard hearted...</B></I>" A third, undated letter to his mother, answering his father's questions: "<I>I can not tell why we guard the plantations only that it is orders. There was quite a number of those wounded men died on the Boat what die here we bury...</B></I>" Lot includes one of the original covers addressed to a "<I>William Hawkins / Argyle / Wash. Co. / N.Y.</B></I>" Hawkins enlisted at the age of 19 in Argyle, NY as a Private. He served in the New York 93rd Infantry, Company "I" and was discharged for wounds on July 12, 1865. The letters are uniformly very clean and in near fine condition. <I>From the collection of Henry E. Luhrs.</B></I><BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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