Auction details
7:00 AM PT - Jun 18th, 2008
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Autograph Letter Signed, "J.O. Sherwin" 83rd Illinois, 4p. quarto, Clarksville, Tennessee, October 25, 1863, and reads in part: "...I do not feel much like writing for I have chased guerrillas 48 hours & done 24 hours guard duty in the last 72 hours & it rained one 24 hours that we were out after the guerrillas. The citizens came in & reported 200 guerrilas out 20 miles & 50 of us went out after them but we could not get nearer than 5 miles of them. We chased them until nine oclock at night when a citizen came up to us & told us that we had passed a squad of them two miles so we turned about & went back & surrounded the house that they wer said to be in eating their suppers. The night was cloudy & dark & the house in the woods. The Co. divided into two squads one going on one side of the house & the other on the other side & came together at the house at the same time. One of the squads thought the other to be guerrillas & fired six shot at them before they found out the mistake but a s the good Lord would have it nobody was hurt & the guerillas had all gone. We then went on about a mile further & stopped at a planation & ordered a warm supper for 50 hungry soldiers...after telling you a little story about a soldiers wife will stop writing for the present A she rebel ( the belle of the city) was riding through our camp a few days since in company with a young chap for pleasure on horse back & on seeing a little flag floating before a soldier’s house the she rebel made a remark about the dirty Yankee rag. The soldier’s wife was cutting meat for supper & heard the remark & it was no sooner said than the butcher knife came flying at her from the soldiers wife but missed the woman & struck the whole length of the blade in the horses side. So much for a soldiers wife. The rebels got those nice gloves you made for me last winter when they got my overcoat the day of the battle & I wish you knit me a pair of woolen mittens..." VG.
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