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Auction: 313 - Numismatic Collector's Series - Ft. Worth, TX
Lot: 1444

Civil War: Soldier´s Archive Choice group of 26 items, 1863-1890, concerning Milo H Cooley, a drummer in Company F of the 27th Massachusetts Volunteers. The earliest letter, from SP Cooley (Milo´s brother) in Washington NC (on the Inner Banks), April 14, 1863, addresses their father, explaining that he has not been taken prisoner, and "we are all right as yet but are completely surrounded by the enemy! The Siege has been carried on sixteen days and as yet very few are wounded...We received reinforcements last night..." He cuts his note short, as "the enemy has commenced firing!" The next, from December 1863, is from Cooley´s friend James Gowdy of the 2nd Ohio Volunteers in Chattanooga, to Cooley in Newport News, VA: "Our regiment has done as much hard marching as any...but I have stood it all and thank the Lord that I am...fat and hearty...My weight is (145 lbs)..." He is paying extortionate prices for food: "1.00 for 2 loaves of bread...but it will not last long. The Rail Road will soon be finished from Bridgeport...[Until then] you can judge for yourself whether a large army can be well supplied with Hard Tack and sow belly...Government Grub suits me very well if they will only give me enough of it...More than one third of Gen. Hookers 12th corps will reenlist...I missed one of the hardest fights that our regiment ever was in...the battle of Chicamauga on the 19th & 20th of Sept last. Our company had 7 men wounded & 13 taken prisoners..." A month later, SP Cooley writes again, this time from Hatteras Inlet, NC, where after a rough crossing of shallow water, "we were the sickest fellows you ever saw...We are anchored...in a hard storm." The next day, Ambrose E "Burnside & Foster arrived to day and brought the mail...The Rebbel gun...Boats are out on the water for us and so we are for them...The New York Zouaves...run aground...Orders have been passed through the fleet to have all signal lights down and our eyes are all open ready for a fight..." A Telegram from SP at Bermuda Hundred on May 19 1864 announces "Milo is missing I think a prisoner. I am well." After an apparent family inquiry, the Massachusetts Military State Agency informs Milo´s wife that he does not appear on any lists of exchanged soldiers or Union deaths provided by Confederate prisons. He survives the war and settles in Iowa, where he receives five letters from his brother SP in Connecticut during the 1870s. With three other items from that period. Other letters through the 1880s are from another brother, who has settled in Helena, MT, and a friend in Huron, Dakota Territory, both of whom are homesteading. Milo also moves to CT, where he receives letters about insurance and other business matters. With an 1883 letter from the Pension Office that Milo´s claim has insufficient evidence. With a printed flyer from Grand Army of the Republic Stanley Post, No 11, listing Cooley as a member of the social committee, and a printed list of men from his Civil War company also naming him.Finally, with two letters relating to the Improved Order of Red Men, of which Cooley was a member. Items are all in VG condition or better. [47]

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$675