Raynors HCA 2019-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2019
Federal soldier’s letter written by John H. Gray, who enlisted into Indiana 101st Infantry, August 1862 and mustered out June 1865. Datelined, 101st Ind. Near Savannah GA., December 94th, ‘64, 20pp., , in part, “I now begin a history of what I saw and did during our long weary and important raid through the ‘heart of Georgia’. ... we proceeded to Atlanta tearing up Rail Roads, burning ties, bending rails, burning bridges and destroying telegraph. We burned Kingston, Cartersville and every town, barn, cotton press, gin house, but the burning of Atlanta Ga. was the grandest sight of my life. ... After dark the appointed detail fired the fated houses, the depots, the Trout House, White Hall, and the businesses and houses of the prominent Rebel citizens ... Thus the city appeared converted into one grand sheet of flame. ... some of the flames .. sound as a thousand cannons... Gen. Sherman had announced his intention to live off of the country ... I saw a sight, awful and degrading. Five stout men .. of such loose morals and unbridled passions as to sieze a Negro wench and forcibly throw her down, strip her naked and attempt to satisfy their brutal passions ... At Miledgeville ... we destroyed the Penitentairy, releasing 23 prisoners .. blew up magazine, destroyed the bridge ... One afternoon we camped early so as to eat and destroy as much as possible on one of Howell Cobb’s plantation ... White folks are all gone ... Across the road is what we call Negro City for fifty or more cabins ... live eight or ten of Africa’s sable sons and daughters ... Now accompany me to the whipping gin where the world renowned cat-a-nine-tails are used. In a neat little house stands a large wheel, larger than a spinning wheel. To this wheel are fastened 10 to 20 cat-a-nine tails and where the spindle should be are bore firm and stronger which the victim is made to bend his back. Hs hands and feet are made fast and there in that helpless state from one to one thousand stripes are given according to the offense. It can be regulated to inflict a gash with the end of the tail or let it fall full length on the back. this latter is most severe, and it always lays a Negro up, unconscious and unable to work for the space of one week to six months. And the bruises have to be doctored as carefully as skill ... or the Negro winks out and there is a thousand dollars laid in the dust. The whipping gin is used frequently and almost every day. The amount of labor they expect from these Negroes is immense. ...”
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