July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
War-date Confederate Autograph Letter Signed by Horace Smith Fulkerson Secty. of Europe & Southern Direct Trade Co., 1pp. quarto, addressed to an unknown general, June 3, 1861, New Orleans, and reads in part: “...My information is positive as to the U.S. having contracted and paid for at a house in London some 25,000 stand of arms, to be ready in a few weeks, and of their having engaged the same house to manufacture guns for them or the next 6 mo[nths]. All the necessary information as to shipment can be obtained by us in London & one of our Co. is ready to go with the expedition. I have reason to believe that this state Miss & Missouri and perhaps the Confederate Gov’t would join in fitting out the expedition upon our laying before them the facts in our possession...” Good condition. In 1861 the Confederate government sent Horace Fulkerson (1818-1891) to Europe as a special agent to arrange for the purchase of arms and munitions for the Confederate army. After his return from Europe - where he met with some success - he joined "The Confederate," one of the numerous companies of home guards organized to assist in the defense of New Orleans. About ten days before the fall of the city in 1862, he went on a furlough to attend to urgent business at the main office of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Marshall, Texas. He later tried to convince Jefferson Davis and Stephen Mallory to build gunboats in Texas and sail them down the Red River to the Mississippi River to combat the Union gunboats there. He was in 1864 captured and imprisoned by the Union forces in Mississippi.
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