Beschreibung:

Civil War] Union 4 war-date documents from Union combatants and supporters: 1. William F. Barry, as Brigadier General. Autograph letter signed, 2 pages (8 x 5 in.; 203 x 127 mm), Washington, D.C., 4 September 1861, to Captain Hexamer; separation at fold, chip to upper left corner, second page slightly soiled. General Barry prepares to defend Washington: "Hold your Battery in readiness during the next forty eight hours, at every moment, to meet the enemy. Let no officer or man leave camp except on duty: have one day's forage, and provisions (cooked), packed in your waggon. You need not harness your horses, nor keep your men actually under arms until you get further orders. Show this to L[ieutenan]t Col[onel] Ramsay that he may supply you at once with ammunition, fire gages, & such other things as you yet require." 2. William Merritt, as Brevet Major General. Letter signed ("W. Merritt), 2 pages (10 x 8 in.; 254 x 203 mm), "Head Quarters Cavalry / Middlesex Military Division," 5 February 1865, to General George H. Chapman, postscript signed with initials; integral blank, two tiny separations at central fold, long separation to fold of integral blank. Two months before the fall of Richmond, the Commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Potomac directs General Chapman to hunt Confederates: "You will detach a force of four hundred (400) men with three days rations, and the usual amount of forage with the following orders. The force will move to the South of Berryville and sweep around over the country through Myerstown, Rabletown and Rippord, pass over the country east and west of Summit Point as far as Smithfield. Every exertion must be used to clean the country of guerillas and rebels, who are on visits to their relatives and friends. To do this let the officers in command use strategies. Houses must be searched where suspicion attaches, but always under charge of officers who will prevent all outrages. All the stock in the country passed over must be driven away. Let the citizens be given to understand that this visitation is because of the outrages committed by the men whom they are harboring, and secreting, and let them know that if these lawless persons are not kept out of the country, all the families living in the locality will be sent to their friends south of our lines. It is scarcely necessary to say that these guerillas who infest the country over which the expedition will move, should be given no quarter. They have abrogated the rules of civilized warfare and should be made to feel the consequences. There are some families in the neighbourhood of Berryville who have the protection of the Major General Commanding the Army, care must be taken to molest nothing with them. Let a Staff Officer accompany the expedition, and let great care be used that no outrages are commited. The command should start at once." 3. John Lothrop Motley. Autograph letter signed ("J. L. Motley"), 4 pages (7 x 4 1/2 in.; 179 x 114 mm) on a bifolium of machine-laid paper, (London), Maurigy's Hotel, 1 Regent Street, 24 September 1861, to Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston, docketed at head of first sheet "Mr. Motley, 1861 | American War." "[I]n a nutshell ... it was absolutely nothing but slavery, that had brought on our civil war." At the recommendation of Senator Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln appointed the historian John Motley as American minister to Austria, a post he held throughout the Civil War. While on his way to Vienna, Motley spent several weeks in England, where he was instrumental in maintaining strong diplomatic ties between the United States and Great Britain, much of which was sympathetic to the Southern rebellion. Motley here makes a striking case for the Union position in the Civil War to the British Prime Minister, who had "astonished" Motley by "express[ing] a doubt whether slavery had any thing to do with our present civil war." Motley begins his case with the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for president: "A convention