Raynors HCA 2015-02
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/19/2015
War-date Union soldier's letter, 4pp. 8vo., written by Sgt. Gustavus B. Williams (signed Gustavus), Co. K, 51st Mass. Vols., Evan's Mills, N. C., March 5,1863, in part: "We started without incident…Co. I, Capt. Tyler of the 43 was here and marched off his Co. very soon after our arrival. They had been here some seven or eight weeks…the officers occupy a good house, one of the best planation houses I have seen. The sergeants and privates have quarters in board huts accommodating from two dozen or more each…the block house [is] a strong log house of two stores with port holes for cannon and preparations for musketry. There are ten or eleven cavalry men stationed here as this is an important outpost Pollksville…the Cav. daily recon. the country around and our pickets comfortably stationed in huts along the road a mile from our company quarters…guard the only approach …I command the guard acting [as] lieutenant…tis was an immense plantation with two hundred negroes upon it. A creek flows near us carries a sawmill and a grist mill. A plantation sergeant has charge of the whole and last year raised considerable produce. The mills are kept running now and the government have agents manufacturing tar about a mile from here. Tar is worth at the North…about $40.00 per bbl. A great many contrabands…are employed here so you see we have in our care much that is valuable…I have just been to visit the outpost guarded by corporal and 3 privates…the guards are most watchful. In the creek and swamps…are moccasins, copperheads, rattlesnakes, alligators, wood ticks…our huts have an abundance of rats…an expedition of two or more brigades start somewhere…in a day or two…". VG.
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