Excellent 10th Virginia Infantry Letter

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2004

Autograph Letter Signed, William Stevens Gibbons, 10th Virginia Infantry, 8pp., 2-1/2”x4-3/4” pencil, Scouts, Guides and Curriers, near Gordonsville, May 16 & 17, 1864, to his father in part: “...We left our Camp near the front yesterday evening with fourteen hundred prisoners & marched ten miles through rain & mud...Both Armies are very nearly worn out. We have been for the last twelve days fighting very hard...I heard today Grant was pulling back on Fredericksburg. I expect it is so, he is the worst whipped dog you ever saw. Genl. Ewell says Grant lost fifty thousand men. I was on the battle field several days & saw but very few of our men killed but never saw the like of dead Yanks. The 10th Reg have all been taken prisoners but fifteen or twenty. Maj Coffman was killed also...Capt Sellers. I wrote you in my last letter that Col. Warren was killed. He was shot through the neck. Genl Ed Johnston was taken prisoner Genl J.E. B Stewart [sic] killed. Genl G.H. Stewart who commanded the brigade to which the 10th is attached was taken prisoner also. We have lost very heavily in the way of Genl officers....I heard yesterday that Johnston was fighting the yanks I hope he will not let them get to Rome. I started from Camp a foot I am mounted now. The Orderly Sergt of the Co. & myself came across two stray horses & mounted them. I expect we will be fighting for the next fifteen days so the Yankees think anyhow...Three of us have permission to visit Hardy Co. for the purpose of procuring horses. One of the boys is a cousin of Genl R.E. Lee’s...We have orders to take horses from union men or capture them from Yankees either one they will not cost us anything...I have named my new horse after Miss Sallie Cooke...” Irregular edges wear pages were ripped from a diary or journal to be sent home, else Fine.SMITH, Ashbel (1805-1886) Graduated from Yale in 1824 and became a doctor in 1828. After further medical study in Europe, he decided to go to the newly formed Republic of Texas in 1837. When he arrived in Texas he became a roommate of Sam Houston, who appointed him surgeon general of the Army of the Republic of Texas on June 7, 1837. In this role Smith set up an efficient system of operation and established the first hospital in Houston, a military institution. When the Texas Medical Association came into being in 1853, he was chairman of the committee that drafted its constitution and bylaws. When the Civil War began he organized a company, the Bayland Guards, which he drilled and trained. While leading his company, a part of Company C, Second Texas Infantry, at Shiloh, he received a severe arm injury and was cited for bravery, along with the rest of his company. He was promoted to colonel and named commander of the Second Texas Infantry, which he led at several engagements in Mississippi, including Corinth, and the Tallahatchie River. During the siege of Vicksburg, he was in command of a vulnerable earthen fortification at one of the entrances to that city. After the surrender of Vicksburg, Smith was in charge of several positions in the vicinity of Matagorda Peninsula on the Gulf Coast of Texas, and was credited with preventing Union invasions in that area. Towards the end of the war he was put in charge of the defenses of Galveston. After the war he and William P. Ballinger were sent by Governor Pendleton Murrah as commissioners to negotiate peace terms for Texas with Union officials in New Orleans.

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