Raynors HCA 2018-03
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/15/2018
War-date Confederate officer Autograph Letter by Captain Elliot Johnston, who served as an aide on General Richard S. Ewell’s staff from 1862 until he was severly wounded at the battle of Antietam, 4pp. quarto, July 23, 1864, and reads in part: “...Doctor Gibson has twice decided to make a second amputation and was only deterred from doing so a few weeks since by the great prevelance of gangrene in the Hospitals here. I put on the artificial leg too soon, and the congestion of the blood owing to the tight lacing of the thigh cause the muscles & flesh to draw up, leaving the bottom of the leg almost without any covering except a thin layer of skin...My leg is reduced that the artificial leg is much too large for me in front, while it presses severly behind and thus the joints at the knee are not on the same axis with my knee joint...There is no one, if I except Genl. Gordon who has an English leg who can approach me in the facility with which I get along. My leg chages a good deal and further readson I cannot remain in the field...Indeed Hood is the only one who now attempts it, and he, being in command of the Army of Tennessee, has conveniences taht a Captain on the Staff does not possess...Genl. Chilton is very desirous taht I should go to the South on an Inspection tour...Well, what do you think of the power of the South now? Do you all think ‘Useless’ Grant has us so completely beseiged taht we are quaking in our shoes (those that have them)? The Confederacy is getting stronger every day and now that Trenholm (of Fraser & Trenholm) is our Secy of the Treasury, we are in hopes that our finances will so imporve that when we go to market, we will not carry our money in a basket and bring home our produce in our pocket...The military success that Mr. Fessenden asks for will be difficult to achieve as long as ‘Massa Robert’ (God Bless him) and the Army of Northern, Va. remain. I expect a good many of our friends suffered in the cause of the late invasion...” Fine condition...plus; Autograph Letter Signed by S. Williams AAG, by Command of Major General McClellan, 1pp. octavo, October 21, 1862, and reads “Permission is hereby given to the brothers of Lieut. Elliot Johnston, Confederate Army, who was wounded at the battle of Antietam, to remove that officer from Shephardstown to Baltimore.” Very good condition. (2 items)
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