Beschreibung:

16 items, 1862-1863. A young man from Jamaica, Long Island, George Crawford was one of the earliest Americans to rise to the defense of the Union after the outbreak of the Civil War, volunteering for the 5th US Cavalry on April 3, 1861. For two years, he served without hesitation, but he seems to have been one of those unfortunate people for whom nothing came easy. His letters recount the usual hardships of a military life, but others as well, from having to sell his jacket in order to be able to send money home to support his mother while his father drank to surviving a stay in the Eruptive Fever Hospital. One of the rarest of Civil War letters, dated Feb. 20, 1862, offers a first hand account of contracting and surviving smallpox: When I went to look in the looking-glass to comb my head, I found my face completely covered with little pimples, which I supposed was caused by a fever that I had had the day previous.... [the doctor] told me I had the small pox and that he would have to send me to the small pox Hospital. I was taken away immediately and have not been to my regiment since. I am not convalescent, and am allowed to go out and walk around the grounds of the hospital. Since I have been here I had had the very best of treatment, nothing that I wanted but what I got. The Doctors are very kind, and the nurses are men, who have been sick with this awful disease and have recovered. Nearly every day I see some poor being carried out, he having gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns...There is much more, with graphic detail about the disease and the hospital itself. Crawford took the near misses incidental to a soldier’s life with remarkable calm. Just after the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, he described a close shave with Confederate shells while he was asleep, adding a little bravado for good effect: The shell fell so near my tent as to throw the mud all over it. One solid six pound shot buried itself between my tent and the tent next to me. I have the "crature" now, as a momento...It seems a miracle that one did not light in my tent, but I escaped without seeing one until next morning. I went to sleep during the fire, and said to myself if a shell happens to drop in my tent I think it will wake me up... While fretting over his mother’s financial straits in December, he saw death creeping nearer. The late battle at Fredericksburgh has caused the death of many an honest man, he wrote, but I was not called into action, but for four days stood at my horse’s head, ready to mount him and be off for the battle field should I be required. The day before the battle I saw all of my friends from Jamaica who belong to the 40th or Mozart Regiment, but if they are all alive now, is more than I expect. The slaughter was terrible...He escaped from Gettysburg, too, serving on picket at Emmittsburg, though he noted I have been in every other cavalry engagement under Genl. Beauford [Buford] since then... Since then did not last long for the star crossed Crawford. Near Warrenton, Va., on July 31, 1863, Sgt James Getty of the 5th Cavalry wrote to Crawford’s family to say that the regiment had been ambushed by Rebel infantry near Manassas Gap: the Rebels opened a volley of musketry on us from a whole Brigade when Corporal George T. Crawford was killed along with some others of our Regmt. I was so sorry about George. I scarcely knew what to do as he and I were great friends he being company Clerk & I 1st sergeant, we were continually together and has been for two years... A second letter, dated Sept. 16, 1863, from Capt. J.W. Mason provides additional detail: He was killed at Manassas Gap, Va., on the 21st of July, and as I have been informed buried by the Rebels. He was killed at the head of my advancing column, and at the particular moment we were forced to fall back by an overwhelming force of rebels infantry. He being formerly a resident of my wife’s home I have taken more than ordinary interest in his career, and can assure you tha