July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
War-date Confederate soldier’s Autograph Letter Signed by Henry A. Snider, 4pp. octavo, Battery Marion, Sullivan Island, May 2, 1864, and reads in part: “...We have first rate times here in catching fish & crabs but the provisions we get from Government I cannot speaks so favorably. Sometimes for a week perhaps we would not get a grain of meal, noting but meal rice & corn, bread sometimes maybe a little wheat flour...the Yankees are busy as ever on Morris Island in building additional fortification and planting more guns and mortars. About three weeks ago they had but three mortars on that Island. But today there is no less than (20) twenty bearing on this Island and Fort Sumpter. You can judge what a grand sight it is to behold to hear twenty mortars fired as quick as they can be touched off and in about 7 or 10 seconds afterwards see the same number of shells explode about fifty or hundred feet in the air right over old Fort Sumter. One of our men was in Charleston yesterday on a visit to the city and while there some of the Yankee Prisoners taken at Plymouth were passing through the city to the railroad depot on their way to Americus, Ga. He says that while they were marching through the streets that the ladies of Charleston presented them with flowers & beautiful bouquets, and gave them nice eatables while they stopped there, a rather mysterious affair this I think. What do you think about it? The Confederates are busy building additional work on this Island, they are building a mortar battery almost right in front of our shanty door...” Fine condition. 18th Infantry Battalion was formed in the spring of 1862 with men from Savannah. It contained four companies and was also known as the Savannah Guards or Savannah Volunteers Guards. The unit served on the coast and distinguished itself at Battery Wagner near Charleston, then in May, 1864, it moved to Virginia with 225 effectives. It was stationed at Chaffin's Bluff on the James River and attached to the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. Later the battalion was assigned to Barton's, then C. A. Evans' Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, and was active in the defense of Petersburg and around Appomattox. This unit lost eighty-two percent of the 85 engaged at Sayler's Creek and surrendered 1 officer and 16 men of which 8 were colored musicians and cooks. Majors William S. Basinger and John Screven were in command.
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