Beschreibung:

Lot of approximately 145 letters, most 4-8pp (1000+ pp total correspondence), many with original covers, spanning Oct 1862 - June 1865. All but approximately 5 letters written by John Merritt Morse (1832-1913) of Jefferson, NH to his family while serving with the NH 3rd Infantry and later the United States Army Signal Corps. Lot also includes 11 portrait CDVs of identified soldiers, many of whom served in the Signal Corps, a leather wallet, a small printed Army of Northern Virginia battle flag, an issue of The New South published out of Port Royal, SC, and Morse's Civil War-era Lemaire field glasses. A substantial archive which highlights the critical role of the US Signal Corps during the war. Archive is also significant for its descriptions of the newly emancipated African-Americans inhabiting the Sea Islands, particularly members of the Gullah community, and for the perspective offered by Morse on the "Port Royal Experiment." Other notable content includes references to President Lincoln, Clara Barton, the Battle of Pocotaligo, the Battle of Fort Wagner, the Siege of Charleston Harbor, the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, and the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. John Merritt Morse enlisted on 8/13/1862 as a private and mustered into "I" Co. NH 3rd Infantry. After enlistment Morse joined his regiment on the island of Hilton Head, South Carolina. HDS records indicate that he transferred to the US Army Signal Corps on 11/3/1863, however, his letters indicate that he was detached from his command and given duty in the USSC as early as February 1863, a month before the US Signal Corps was officially established as a branch of the US Army. Morse served at various signal stations in the Sea Islands and in Florida prior to joining the X Corps Army of the James in Virginia during the Spring of 1864. After a 30 day furlough in December 1864, Morse would return to field service in Virginia with the XXIV Corps and remain there through the end of the war. Throughout his enlistment Morse was an unwavering correspondent writing detailed and articulate letters describing his circumstances. The majority of letters were written to his wife, Harriet "Hattie" Lord Morse (1838-1892). While encamped at Hilton Head members of the 3rd NH regiment were experiencing firsthand one of the most significant non-military developments of the war, ie. early encounters between freed enslaved people and Union soldiers at a time before the Emancipation Proclamation and when it was yet unknown if the Union would prevail. Morse was the son of a Free Will Baptist Church minister, and his letters indicate that by April 1863 he was acting as a self-styled minister to a "congregation" of freedmen and women on the island. Morse held regular prayer meetings which he describes in his letters. It is from this ministry that Morse developed amicable relations with the freedmen which allowed him to bear witness to their lives and culture. Morse writes with genuine compassion for the African Americans he encounters, though at times his reflections are laced with a condescension and racism that was typical of the period. Noteworthy in Morse's letters are his observations of how other "ministers" from the North interact with the freedmen. It is likely the ministers referenced by Morse were northern abolitionists who arrived on the Sea Islands as part of the "Port Royal Experiment." Writing from Braddock's Point on April 26, 1863, Morse describes for Hattie one incident which characterized for him the ineptitude and lack of understanding often displayed by northerners who worked with newly freed African Americans: "A minister came here last year from the North to labor among the contrabands on this Island, staid here a few months and left with and promulgated the impression that the Blacks had no Sense and could not learned anything. It is true and a man of education and common sense ought to know that they could not be expected to comprehend