Raynors 2012-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/27/2012
Confederate officer's letter by Major Eugene Blackford, 5th Alabama Infantry, "Hd. Qrs 5th Ala. Regt. near "Santee" Caroline County, Va," January 25, 1863, 4pp., 4to, to his mother, Mary Blackford, Lynchburg, Virginia, reading, in part, "…Gen. Rodes thinks that a battle cannot be postponed more than a day or two. He may have means of information of which we are not aware, but certainly there is nothing going on on the opposite banks to justify any such opinion…We are directed to hold ourselves in readiness for instant action…Mr Gordon's family have been left in a state of great uneasiness by these rumours - His house is just on the line of battle and would be battered to pieces in the engagement…I am very much interested now in the instruction of a battalion of sharpshooters, which has been lately organized in this Brigade, to the command of which I have been assigned. I have lately commenced drilling them by the bugle signal altogether. Tis a beautiful sight to see the line deployed for more than ½ mile, all controlled by simple sounds of a bugle…everybody seems elated by the news from Illinois - how like a judgment it seems for Lincoln, that vengeance should first cry aloud from his own state…the pickets across the river are much disgusted with the war, and make no scruple of saying so, but then as they say they are powerless, or peace would be made tomorrow…" Trivial splits at the intersections of folds, very good condition.
Click on a thumbnail above to display a larger image below
Hold down the mouse button and slide side to side to see more thumbnails(if available).
Click above for larger image.