July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
War-date Union officer’s Autograph Letter Signed by Arlon Sabin Atherton (1842-1922) who enlisted as private in the 3rd New Hampshire Infantry in August 1861, WIA and POW at Deep Bottom Run, August 16, 1864, and was commissioned captain before his muster in 1865. This letter is 1-1/4pp. large folio, on portion of a Muster Roll, dated July 12, 1863, Morris Island, South Carolina, and reads in part: “....We are now lying under the fires of Ft. Sumpter, Fort Wagner, Castle Pinckney, the Cumming Point Battery & Battery Bee. But we keep behind the sand knolls so they cannot injure us much. We can see Fort Sumpter and Charleston just as plain as though we were right there. We are about two miles from Fort Sumpter. Our brigade had orders the eighth to be ready to go on an expedition. That night...we started on the morning of the 10th at signal from the general as soon as we reached there a nd got partly screedned behind the banks of the river, our batteries on Folly Island opened fire on them. It was just as the sun was rising that they opened fire. They kept up their fire on them for about an hour when some of the Navy boys that went up the creek with us opened fire on them on their rear with some boat howitzers which they brought with them on their launches. The rebs spied us then and directed their fire towards us. I wish you could have the picture of us as we lay there in the river with the shell flying around us..no one was killed The general gave the orders for the 7th Connecticut regiment to land and charge on them and for the 3rd NY regt to follow directly in their rear...Their infantry poured in an awful lot of leaden missles then but we soon drove them. We landed in mud and water waist high just as we were driving the rebels. Some one who was leading and firing close by me spoke and said boys I hope you will not think any the less of me because I am a little muddy. Come to look around it was our General Strong. He had lost his hat and boots when he jumped out into the mud and was all covered with mud from head to foot. Instead of stopping back as our generals generally do a mile or two to the rear he went with us in the most dangerous place, picked up rifle which one of our wounded men had dropped and came right in to the ranks with us. You had ought to have heard the cheers we gave him, for all the balls were falling like hail around us the boys all stopped and gave him cheer after cheer. The General than spoke and said ‘Men fire low and trust in God and the Island soon shall be ours’ and it was...” More. Fine condition. George Crockett Strong (1832-1863) commanded an expedition sent from Ship Island against Biloxi, Mississippi, in April 1862, and another sent against Ponchatoula, and was commissioned brigadier general of volunteers in November 1862. He was wounded on July 18, 1863, while leading the assault against Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina, and died of tetanus in New York City. He posthumously received a commission as major general, dated from the day of the battle. Strong is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, and they have a monument to his memory.
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