21 CIVIL WAR LETTERS Sgt Jones 21st Maine Regiment to Alice White, Maine 1862-64
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21 CIVIL WAR LETTERS Sgt Jones 21st Maine Regiment to Alice White, Maine 1862-64:
$862.00
DESCRIPTION:
For offer is an important archive of twenty-one Civil War letters from one Sgt. Will Jones to Alice White of Kents Hill and Buckfield, Maine. All of the letters have the original envelopes with Civil War era stamps and postal markings. The letters cover a period from 1862 to 1864. It\'s an especially poignant batch of letters as Sgt. Jones died of injuries suffered in the war. The archive is from the estate of an antique dealer, and it includes the correspondence (with notes) between the antique dealer and the gentleman in Maine who sold him the letters sometime around 1961. There is also a typed write-up from the seller describing the letter\'s contents (transcribed below). This is a trove of historical information from a soldier in the field who was a poet and writer. There are descriptions of camp life, and his experiences suffering from \"typho malarial fever.\" The letters are partially sorted and stored in glassine envelopes with note cards, they were to be the basis of a book but the project was never completed. Some of the glassine envelopes contain more than one letter, there are twenty-one letters in total.
Love Letters of a Homesick Soldier Boy
\"As for Christmas I did hang out my stockings of hope in the chimney corners of wishing, but Santa Claus did not fill them and they hang there still -- for letters.\"
A tiny packet of letters, yellowed with a century of passing proves the adage that love always find a way to be wrong. These letters are from Sergeant Will [Jones] to Miss Alice White, his Latin teacher at Kent Hills Seminary in Maine. Although a conscientious objector to all forms of war Jones enlisted and gave to his country his full measure of devotation. He was a poet as well as soldier and served as a telegrapher in Banks Division at New Orleans.
The letters, there are a dozen of them, were written for his sweetheart’s eyes alone, now that a full century has elapsed there should be no breach of faith to give a few excerpts to historism.
“When we return, my musket then
Ever shall rest and rust.
My bayonet become a pen
To serve, not alay my fellow-men
Be this my hope and trust.”
I have copied five verses of Sgt. Jones’s poem ‘When We Return’, etc.
In the letter of November 19, 1862 written from Camp Maine at East New York there were twelve verses
According to this letter one Fitz Allen in the Portland (Maine) Transcript had written a poem, one verse of which Jones quotes:
“But, one day, they will come back, weary and weather beaten, it may be, but victors and heroes in the holy cause. A thousand homes will be open to receive them, then.”
Jones was in the 21st Maine Regiment according to this letter.
The letter of December 27, 1862 was written on official stationary of the Head Quarters Remainder Banks Expedition, 194 Broadway, N.Y. [General Nathaniel P. Banks]. He speaks of Barnum and of Henry Ward Beecher.
Also a letter just received from Alice White:
“Your rare and radiant letter: I had almost written Maiden when I saw that I was stealing from poor Poe the errant poet -, stealing from his ancient Raven, stealing too from Hiawatha, stealing from a noted author.”
\"Say Northern hearts and Northern hands,
What shall our welcome be
When Peace calls back our shattered bands
To where Home’s holy altar stands,
Throne of the loved and free.
There may be years ere we return
Victorious from the wars –
It may be years of duty stern
And perils wild ere we shall earn
A soldiers’ hundred scars.
The world will shout a General’s praise
And vote its Chieftain’s thanks,
But will I have a cheer to raise
For him who faced the fiercest frays,
The soldier in the ranks?
When we return. I hear a voice
Shall great the soldier’s ear
It stills the cannon’s thunderous noise
It speaks through sorrows, hopes and joys
Twill murmur: “Once more here.”
New Orleans, La.
“Behold oh Mars, thy tented power
Where for around my signal tower
The sunrays leap from burnished steel,
A Nation’s woe, a Nation’s weal,
And moving, living lines of blue
The soldiers livery, Glory’s hue
Wind o’er the green of Southern Plains,
The soil of slaves and tears and chains,
Marking many a line and square.
The painting of War’s ruthless hand
An artist terrible as grand
Who traces on his iron pages
The rise and march and fall of ages
God save our land!”
In camp at New Orleans Jones chafed over the inactivity of the war. He was critical of General [Nathaniel P.] Banks who boastingly excused his failure to invade the enemy’s territory, saying “The pear is not yet ripe”
He wrote thusly:
“Everybody has heard of a certain nice arrangement facetiously styled: The Bank’s expedition. Wonderful Bank’s Expedition. Mysterious in its beginning, but more mysterious in its end. The objects were then unknown and still less of them can be seen now that we are assured of their attainment.
Modern warfare is a wonderful service. I will show you a ruin. It lacks antiquity. Fire, not time has been the destroyer. The tower on which our signal station is not. Soldiers instead of owls to the moon may complain. God knows they have a reason. But still there is a genuine ruin, tho but a few months instead of centuries. Treason instead of age has written destruction here. The white walls were not thrown down by fire’s red hands. Ruined Capitol of a ruined State. Commentary monument of Secession.”
In camp.
“A juvenile porker, roasted whole by a ‘irresible’ named Larnkin, was our frugal supper. For a week we subsisted magnificently of the fat of confiscation.”
Baton Rouge, La.
“I was brought here in an ambulance one month since today. Upon a card hanging on my iron bedstead is written ‘Typho Malarial Fever.’ This is the foe I have had to fight, more terrible than any human foe our troops have met at Fort Hudson. For some time it took the form of madness. There is something indescribably awful in being besides one’s self. I am not mad, no, no, not mad! Dr. Steele owns that he gave me up, and all in our ward save our Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Brooks, the chief nurse. I can remember her woman’s hands upon my burning temples, bathing my head with camphor, when I can remember nothing else.”
“In camp I have come to prison again. A word from the outside, a word from Alice, will seem like sunlight coming through the prison chinks and I must write to be written to. To let the sunlightin I must make chinks in the wall. I hitherto make and send this letter through it. I see two years through the chinks in the wall Prison, yes army life is prison. Every trait of my character Is repugnant to this kind of life. Every aspiration of mine runs counter to military fame.
Who wouldn’t rather be Walter Scott than General Scott? Wolfe said he would rather have written Grey’s elegy than won the greatest of battles. My head, what there is of it, is literary, not military.
I probably shall not see you again, Alice. I somehow feel I have stood on Kent’s Hill for the last time. All of my dreams of the to be are dead or dying. The last of the week I shall be gone, perhaps ere it comes, if so Good Bye, if not, Good Night.
Will Jones”
The same mail which brought news to the lonely farm where Alice physically worn and in heart had been furloughed from the school to the home of her father, the County Sheriff, brought also a last letter from her student-soldier. The War Department notified the family of the death of Sgt. Will Jones.
In closely written lines the soldier’s letter to his sweetheart tried to make light of the accident which he befalled him. Jones wrote from a Washington D.C. hospital:
“My horse fell on me one day and the consequence is that I can’t go on drill or ride at present. I must tell you about my horse. He has gone away from me forever, I suppose to the horse hospital. He is a good friend whose loss is largely to be deplored. I had named him ‘Moustache’ for several reasons. I despaired of calling him anything by the endearing name very soon. Secondly, he had an ornament of this name on his lip, that Broadway gallants might envy and Fifth Avenue belles admire. And lastly, simply because that was as affectionate a name as I could give him. But I suppose his name was fatal to him. I am told he will be condemned. His fate will be like Bernardo’s. He will lead the spears no more among the hills of Spain.”
Between the lines of this thinly premonition that he would never see the hills of home, nor his lovely Alice again.
Tearfully she read its prophetic lines, and finished, added a notation in her fine handwriting on the back of the envelope:
“Unanswered ‘till I meet him up above.”
Alice was a frail girl and suffered lung fever several times when she was child. She was a finished musician, a pianist of ability, and an artist. Faithful to the soldier-scholar and poet, she died at the age of 26 – unmarried.
The condition is as to be expected for Civil War Era letters. They appear complete but I have not read the contents. There is some separation/splits at the creases. The envelopes were opened but are generally in good shape.
DIMENSIONS:Dimensions vary.
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On Apr-21-14 at 14:13:50 PDT, seller added the following information:*** Bio of Will Jones:
"HISTORIC RECORD AND COMPLETE BIOGRAPHIC ROSTER 21ST MAINE VOLUNTEERS WITH REUNION RECORDS OF THE 21ST MAINE REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION"
BY ADJ\'T JOS. T. WOODWARD, SEC\'Y AND HISTORIAN OF THE ASSOCIATION
PRESS OF CHARLES E. NASH & SON
AUGUSTA, MAINE, 1907
WILLIAM H. JONES OF WINTHROP, AGE 20, SINGLE, WAS BORN IN SEARSMONT, JULY 27TH, 1842, WAS EDUCATED IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS OF WINTHROP AND THE MAINE WESLEYAN SEMINARY AT KENT\'S HILL.
ENLISTED AND SERVED IN CO. A, 1ST REGIMENT OF MAINE INFANTRY, AT THE AGE OF 18, RE-ENLISTED IN CO. H, 21ST MAINE, AND WAS APPOINTED SERGEANT, DETAILED AT EAST NEW YORK TO MANAGE A FIELD TELEGRAPH OUTFIT FOR THE BANKS\' EXPEDITION, AND WAS IN THIS POSITION IN THE SIGNAL SERVICE TILL HIS DISCHARGE, AUGUST 25TH, 1863.
AFTER RECOVERY FROM MALARIAL FEVER HE RE-ENLISTED IN THE 7TH MAINE BATTERY, TOOK OUT ENLISTMENT PAPERS AND SECURED TWENTY-FIVE MEN FOR THE BATTERY, WAS APPOINTED THIRD SERGEANT AND SERVED AS SUCH TILL HIS DEATH, WHICH OCCURRED AT WASHINGTON, D. C. APRIL 1ST, 1864, OF FEVER.
AS A STUDENT HE TOOK HIGH RANK IN HIS CLASSES AND WAS A PROLIFIC WRITER FOR THE SOCIETY PAPERS OF THE SCHOOL AND THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE TIME UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF "WILL JONES,"
A MEMORIAL SKETCH BY A CLASSMATE APPEARS IN THE KENT\'S HILL BREEZE FOR APRIL, 1899, AND A CHARACTERISTIC POEM WHICH IN LATER YEARS SEEMS WELL NIGH PROPHETIC IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA :
"THOUGH I MAY NOT SING EXULTINGLY, MY HEART IS BEATING FAST, FOR I BREATHE AMONG THESE NORTHERN HILLS THE FAITH FOR WHICH I FIGHT ; THE FAITH THAT HUMAN LIBERTY, WHEN PEACE SHALL COME AT LAST, SHALL FILL THE FEVERED SOUTHERN LIFE WITH THIS NEW ENGLAND LIGHT."
THE INTERMENT WAS AT WINTHROP, MAINE.
21 CIVIL WAR LETTERS Sgt Jones 21st Maine Regiment to Alice White, Maine 1862-64:
$862.00