2005-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/31/2005
Autograph Letter Signed by a 102nd Ohio soldier named Watson, 8p. octavo, Head Quarters Picket Post No. 4, Clarksville, Tennessee, March 5, 1863, with cover it reads in part: “...Today I am at the old picket post again in the Irish shanty...The coloured people and the Irish around here are getting well acquainted with me. They made as much a fuss over me this morning when I came back again as they would over an old friend...a contraband came along bringing us a lot of walnuts for us to crack and eat and pass time away as he expressed...He often goes past this post and sometimes stops with us for hours. I believe I have never written to you about us pressing the negroes in to work for us here. We have had a great many in our employ all the time. First when we came here we wanted entrenchments dug of course so instead of having the soldiers do it, Capt Folwell was ordered out with a squad of men to press in negroes to dig them for us. He was not long in returning with any number of them who were kept digging entrenchments for nearly two weeks...it was resolved to build a fortification here called Fort Bruce. It is now nearly completed and has been constructed entirely by the labor of the negroes whose services we have taken from their secesh owners. There has been from fity working on it for the past two months. Oh! But their rebel masters do hate it to have them working for us. As for the negroes they like it but their masters scold and threaten everything to them when they come home...” More. VG.
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