Raynors HCA 2018-03
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/15/2018
War-date Union soldier’s Autograph Letter Signed by Halsey Bartlett, 6th Connecticut Infantry, KIA at Bermuda Hundred, 5pp. octavo, Port Royal, Hilton Head, South Carolina, June 13, 1862, and reads in part: “...Hilton Head does not look as it did when we landed here November 6th, 1861. I can assure you then there was nothing but a few Negro houses and a few tents for troops (secesh)....There are two long buildings, 100 feet long built for the Negroes with apartments to them for families. I was up there the other day. I should judge by the looks of them there is a thousand (1,000) all sizes and shapes, some as intelligent and smart as need to be, while others are lazy as the house dog at home. The Negro ladies are the smartest. They take in washing for a living. The men find employment about the dock and working at carpentering for they are building here all the time....There was a Negro spy caught here the other night. He laid back in ambush close by the Guard to see if he could not hear some one come and give the countersign. There was a white man with him. They got the countersign and passed our Guard and came to our picket who are obliged to let no one pass about a mile farther back and they took him and brought him to Head Quarters where he proved to be a spy. The other person got away. They took him and confined him in the rifle pit at the fort with a chain around his legs with a fifty pound ball at each end of the chain...” Fine condition.
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