2005-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/31/2005
Autograph Letter Signed, “Capt Harry A. Whitman Comdg 1st Batt. 5th Ind. Cav.”, 7p. octavo, Head Quarters 1st Batt. 5th Ind. Cav. January 5, 1864, begins with a copy of General Orders and ends in letter format, it reads in part: “Soldiers of the 1st Batt. of the 5th Indiana Cavalry of the Department of the Ohio but now ‘on the loose’ you have done another ‘big thing.’ The proud fowl of victory that for a time soared in erratic coursings has at last again go upon the tops of your guidons staffs and shrieks in responsive strains to your joyous acclamations....You sprang with noble alarcity upon your sore backed and unshod steeds and rushed (deployed as skirmishers) with irresitable fury upon a presumtuous foe that had dared to circumscribe your foraging limits. There on the field of carnage where the sun shone dimly and with a lurid hue, where the countless and deadly missles devised by a hellborne ingenuity for the destruction of mankind, came with disagreeable rapidity from rebel shooting irons where the loud whirring shell received involantary reverence as if it were a messenger not of this world calling you to leave this mundane sphere for a higher (or possibly lower) place, there where blood flowed like one of the rivers that causes the army of the Potomac to go into winter quarters...there where the flashing steel brought to the minds of the Mobile gray backs, remeberances of Shelbyville and Anderson’s Cross Roads, there where blood mud fire and smoke were upon the plain and laid only by the dred artist of war...there oh patriots of the first Battalion of Cavalry there...you went in on to those maligant rebels and consumed them in your wrath...[The] Regt had been officered with the field officers. Shortly after my rejoining my command the Morgan Raid occured in which our Regt. took an active part in the capture of his band of thieves, immediatly after our Return to Ky. from Ohio we commenced the march for East Tenn. and arrived at Knoxville on the 1st day of September 1863 our regiment being one of the first to enter the place the feeling of joy we received from the people of East Tenn. can not be described by the pen...I lost some 10 or 12 men killed with some twenty prisoners since we have been with service and at the present time we are occupying the front of our forces prior to an engagement with Longstreet with his force. That is if he does not run away from us.....
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