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A General Describes How a Yankee Trick Cost the Confederacy an Ironclad....
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Description
A General Describes How a Yankee Trick Cost the Confederacy an Ironclad. This wonderful letter written on March 10, 1863 from "Camp before Vicksburg/ Hd Qtrs 15th Army Corps" by Asst. Adjutant General John Henry Hammond (later Brevet Brig. General) to noted poet W. Cullen Bryant details a trick played by Admiral Porter on Confederate forces near Vicksburg that had unexpected consequences. It appears that one night the admiral floated a "dummy" ironclad down the Mississippi toward Confederate positions with the goal of making the Southerners expend ammunition needlessly. The plan worked even better than hoped, as the Confederates, thinking that "this monster" was aimed at re-capturing the Union gunboat Indianola, had their prize "blown to atoms" to prevent it from falling into the hands of Federal forces once again. No such thing, of course, had been intended but before Porter's ruse could be discovered, the Indianola had been destroyed. Hammond gleefully describes the sham, coal-tar covered "gunboat" in great detail ("smoke stacks of flour barrels with real fire inside") and then on the reverse adds the text from a copy of The Vicksburg Daily Whig, brought into camp by a deserter, which fumes at the needless destruction of a boat "that would have been worth a small army to us" and asking "Who is to blame for this piece of folly...?" The letter is clearly written in ink, measures about 10" x 8" and is signed "JHHammond/ AAGenl." A great firsthand story of a little known incident.Auction Info
2009 June Signature Civil War Auction #6024 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
June, 2009
25th
Thursday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 1
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