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Seeing The Sunken Wreck of Ironclad Tecumseh At Th

War-date Union soldier's letter written in pencil by Quarter Master Sgt. John P. DeMerit, 29th Wisconsin, 3p. quarto, ink, Dauphins Island, Mobile Bay, Alabama, February 9, 1865, and reads in part: "...At an early hour we steamed into Mobile Bay and with anxious eyes moved over the ground where so lately was to be seen one of Farraguts best exploits. As we passed between Forts Morgan & Gaines and saw the many cannon mouths pointing at us, we could not but think what a change had taken place in those forts. We could see one or two wrecks of Rebel gunboats, and the smoke stack of our gunboat Tecumseh which struck a torpedo, you remember, and went down with its crew. Another strange yet beautiful sight was the shore, for it was white as the snow....You have seen the sand used on paper for making sand-paper. Just such sand abounds here, in fact the shores around the lower part of Mobile Bay are nothing but such sand. It drifts like snow and by moon-light one can hardly believe he is not walking on snow instead of sand..." With postwar note from 1894 indicating that he read a portion of the letter before a GAR reunion. Fine.

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