Raynors HCA 2016-06
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/17/2016
A great war-date Union soldier's letter, 8pp. 8vo., written, on "View of the Capitol at Washington" patriotic stationery, by Pvt. George S. Youngs, [POW Harper's Ferry, Va., 9/15/62], Co. G, 126th New York Vols., Camp Douglas, Chicago. Ill., Oct. 10-11, 1862, in part: "…some of the boys had revolvers but not a man received a gun until we arrived at Harpers Ferry…so you see we had our arms about two weeks before the fight. You ask how I felt when I found myself so soon a prisoner of war. Well to tell you the truth I felt better than I had for some hours previously. If we had have been in a position to fight where we could at least have been doing a little good it would have been different, but we were obliged to lie still and see our comrades killed and wounded without the power of doing anything to avenge them. Albert has been in the service a year and has not see a fight…we saw one before being in three weeks…it has completely discouraged the boys. If we had been taken somewhere and drilled two or three months…the result might have been different…the boys do not feel as though they had been used right. They believe that they have a perfect right to go home and stay until they are exchanged and a great number are acting on that belief…another thing which tends to dishearten us is the excessive sickness of the place. There is more than 100 sick out of our regiment already…out of eight thousand rebel prisoners that were quartered here over twelve hundred were buried in less than six months making an avenge of about seven per day. The man that buried them said he thought he ought to rank as high as a colonel for a Col. raised only a thousand men…I will tell you how we came to lose our things. When the flag of truce was razed it was not seen by some of the batteries and they…continued to fire…while [we] were ordered out of the trenches and down the hill to Bolivar…before the regiment was formed and marched back the 9th Vermont had stripped our knapsacks of everything so that although the rebels would have allowed us to take everything but our arms and ammunition we could not find anything to take…[Oct. 11]…we had a fire here last night…which burned the barracks of the 342nd Ohio…with the cook rooms…nobody knows how it happened and if there should be another tonight I suppose it would be purely accidental…the boys have broken the fence down on the side next [to] the city for twenty rods and for a week have been going out and in just as they pleased. We are just as much prisoners here as the rebels were…we have nothing whatever to do beyond getting a little wood and water to cook with. Co. I, the kid glove Co. musters only 50 men…several have left [deserted] from our Co. Several more intend to. It is already cold enough for December…being on a level prairie the wind sweeps over it…yours truly, George S. Youngs." The front panel of the original patriotic transmittal cover is included. Light soiling, else VG
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