2005-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/31/2005
A 7pp. 8vo. letter written in ink by Sergeant Martin V. Miller [Corinth Miss., Feb 5th 1863], to his sister concerning an expedition guarding a wagon train in the hills of Mississippi, describing the rural mountain people found there, and of recognizing Grant's fighting technique more than a year before Cold Harbor, reading, in part: "...we got back yesterday evening from an expedition about eighteen miles from here into Alabama to guard a wagon train which went out for lumber…the roads…[were] good. There was three Regts went with a train of wagons about three miles long; we were the rear guard going and in [the] advance coming back…our route was all the way through a heavy pine timber and some of the prettiest country scenery I ever saw though it is almost worthless for farming…I wish you could see some of the people who live through there, some of them hardly resemble human beings. The men are very tall and extremely thin with very long straight hair, light colored with a face as sharp as a hatchet and…a very sallow complexion…the women look worse than the men, but I shall not attempt to describe them. You can form some idea if you imagine a woman six feet in height, weighing only seventy five or eighty lbs. with nothing on but a thin calico dress and a long yoke sunbonnet…the hardest battle of the war is yet to be fought at Vicksburg for it is at present one of the most important places held by the Enemy and will be defended to the last extremity…Gen. Grant is one of those men, who [is] unaccustomed to defeat, when he gets to fighting one will conquer or die…". Some spotting, else very good.
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