Raynor HCA 2014-04
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/1/2014
An authentic issue of Harper’s Weekly, September 26, 1863, 16pp., disbound, VG. From the interior, a dramatic center spread engraving, “ ... Execution of Five Deserters in the Fifth Corp” shows the convicted being shot by firing squad and falling back on their own caskets. A month after Gettysburg, the army decided to dramatically execute some bounty-hunters as a deterrent, and took advantage of five bounty-jumpers who had signed up with the 118th Pennsylvania but were caught and arrested on 13 August 1863 when after escaping en route to they tried to re-cross the Potomac. Seven days later they were court-martialed and sentenced to die before a firing squad. All had previous bounty-jumping records; and, perhaps a major factor in the decision to execute them, all were foreigners. Only one had a good command of English; two were Roman Catholic, and one was a Jew. The appeal made to President Lincoln, but he was uncharacteristically unsympathetic.
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