28th North Carolina Letter Group with 1st Manassas Content

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/31/2006

Group of four (4) letters by Cornelius Cain, 28th North Carolina Infantry who enlisted at age 19 as a corporal on May 4, 1861, promoted to sergeant in April, 1862 and killed in action at Frazier’s Farm, Virginia on June 30, 1862. Includes: ALS, “Cornelius Cain” 2p. folio, Dobson, North Carolina, May 26, 1861, and reads in part: ‘...we are a going to start tomorrow at 10 oclock to go to Raleigh...I will come home but I have to stay twleve months and at the expiration of that I will come if my life is spared. You all must not think hard of me for leaving that day and not telling you all farewell, for I could not have told you all farewell to have saved my life...I never expect to see their faces no more in this world but if I never return I hope to have a resting place where I shall never see anymore troubles...’ VG...plus; ALS, “Cornelius Cain” 2p. octavo, May 27, 1861, Dobson, North Carolina, and reads in part: ‘...we start Raleigh at ten oclock and from Raleigh to Degarisburgh and there we stay twelve months and if God spares my life through the perilious dangers I will come back...[and concludes with poem] O! Remember me/ When this you see/Though many miles/A part we be...” VG...plus; ALS “Cornelius Cain” 4p. quarto, Garysburg, North Carolina, June 14, 1861, and reads in part: ‘...our sleeping is very bad we have nothing to sleep on but one blanket and we have to lay that down upon the floor or upon the ground and sleep if we can. There is several of our company sick at the present time but I have not been sick narry day since I have been here...I want to be back in that country fore there is no girls here that I can see...you would not know me if you could see me for I have to wear a little cap and the sun shine has burnt me as black as a coal...” VG...plus; ALS, “Cornelius Cain” 4p. octavo, Garysburg, North Carolina, July 24, 1861, and reads in part: “...we have a great deal of sickness in our camp with measels and one of our men died and all the rest is a getting better. There has been as high as sixty odd of our men down at the same time and I had to wait on ten myself and had no one to help me do a thing. There wa s a battle fought on the 21st day of this instant at or near Manassas Junction and the Souther troops gained a great victory over the Northern usurpers the loss of the South were 5,000 killed and the loss of the enemy were 15,000 killed, and the regiment that we are in is ordered to go near that place and I have no doubt than in less than one month but what we will be in to a fight up our necks....” VG. (4 items)

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