Auction Name: 2026 February 26 Historical Manuscripts & Texana Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 47064

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6328*47064

Revolutionary War Soldier's Letter by Elisha Abbe. Two pages, 6 1/2 x 8 inches, Baltimore; September 14, 1781. A letter from Connecticut soldier Elisha Abbe, written to his wife, Jerusha, as his regiment marched south to Virginia. Abbe, a merchant who had enlisted in January 1776 as a commissary, reports on troop movements and the uncertainty of the war, describing the route between Maryland and New England as the Continental and French forces converged on what would become the Siege of Yorktown. In large part:

"I Arived at this place yesterday well. I overtook the French Troops to this place. I shall set out on Sunday for Virgene as will all the Troops by Land. It is out of my power to tell when I shall be at home. Thare is not any News Abought the Brittish army at this place...I sent my mare home by Mr Potter, I wish her to be put in sum good pasture sum where untill winter if I shouldn't come home before then tell Wm Wole to put her into the stable and Not Ride her any. It is abought four hundred miles from this place to Windham...I am anctious to heare from home, but when you will have an opportunity to Right me is uncertain. I cannot think of any method for you to take but to send a letter to Col [Jeremiah] Wadsworths office in Hartford, as thare is exspreses almost every Day come from Hartford to this place..." Signed, "Elisha Abbe."

A provenance note in period ink below the letter reads: "This letter from my Grand father Elisha Abbe to his wife years ago." Included with the letter are two pages of Heath's Infallible Counterfeit Detector, the first of which includes a poem written in the same hand as the author of the provenance note, signed "M. Kinne," presumably Mary Kinne Walcott (1807-1893), Abbe's granddaughter.

Affixed to the verso of the second page is a clipped address panel, reading, "1781. Mr. Elisha Abbe / Windham," as well as a brief letter from Abbe's daughter, Emma Smith (1785-1864), to her daughter, Betty. The letter reads, in part: "I received your little rose bush poor little thing it could not speak yet it conveyed to me a language which my heart felt and understood...it shall be sheltered from the cold blasts of winter as it were in my bosom and hope it may one day become again our mutual care." Signed, "Emma Smith E. S."

Condition: Lightly toned with smoothed folds. Staining and wear resulting in several small areas of loss, affecting text. Multiple repairs with paper and archival tissue present on both sides.

Reference: Nichols, Mary et al. Abbe-Abbey Genealogy, in Memory of John Abbe and His Descendants. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1916.

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