2005-03
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/28/2005
It's about as fervent, impassioned and emotional as ever committed to a soldiers letter ! …and of formidable length. Beautifully penned in a tiny, very neat, readable hand on four large (7 x 9) pages by Confederate Captain John M. Weidemeyer of the 6'th Missouri Infantry to his wife from: "Camp at Grand Gulf, March 27, 1863." He opens poetically: "TATTOO HAS BEAT AND THE CAMP IS ALL SILENT, NOT A LIGHT TO BE SEEN NOR A BEING STIRRING, not a sound heard except the sighing of the winds in the treetops. The chirp of a lonely cricket and the measured tramp of a sentinel as he paces his weary round in front of my tent…cannot confine my thoughts to my book. They fly away to you and other days…" wistfully reminiscing about the way she looked when they first met and how "…I was forced to the conclusion that I was in love…made up my mind to tell you but when I tried I found my timidity would not let me do it…" and continuing by describing their romancing, play-by-play…kiss-by-kiss: "we would often sit, [your] head pillowed on my bosom and talk of love in the future. When at a loss for talk we would kiss the hours away…" then describing their marriage and early life together, lacking the wealth and luxury they would later have; the loss of their first child…"but alas ! Too soon happiness was destroyed. War burst upon our peaceful country and the merciless foe laid our humble little home in ashes and drove us homeless and penniless into the world…we wander miles apart, I do the duty and risk the dangers of a soldier's life, my wife and little ones driven to a distant and strange country to [Texas] to endure the anxiety and hardships [of] such a situation…you believe me to be daily exposed to danger and death. I am your protection, your support, your husband and I know you love me dearly. …Your lot is a hard one [but…] I cannot come to see you…This all looks hard but for the sake of our country and our liberty it must be borne. The war cannot last always…[eventually] we will be able to appreciate the blessings of peace"…writing what it might be like after the war "…I see my little ones around me and hear their merry laugh and singing. …I am in the soft arms of a loving wife. Her warm velvet lips are pressed to mine…even in dreams [this] is pleasant." Continuing on in that same romantic vein, asking her forgiveness as she may think it was childish of him. He closes with touching sentiments and adds a postscript: "Just one year today since we parted on the banks of the Arkansas River. It has been an eventful year…one that will never be effaced from the pages of memory." He added in margin on the first page: "This is the day appointed by the President [Jeff Davis] for Prayer to God…thanking him for his care over us and ask his continued mercies. I went away into the woods and kneeled down by a big tree and prayed for you and my dear little ones…I HOPE YOU WILL NOT LET ANYONE READ THIS LETTER. I WRITE IT FOR NO EYES BUT YOURS…" Normal light aging; few dust marks only on the edges of the folds on the rear page but not obstructing any wording. ACCOMPANIED BY photostats of his newspaper obituary indicating that pre-Civil War he had personally raised and outfitted a company of men in Missouri to fight the Kansas "Free-Staters"…and an interesting bio sketch of his military history.
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