Civil War letters written by brothers from Plymouth to be sold at June 25 auction

CARTHAGE, Ill. — More than 100 letters written by brothers from Plymouth who were soldiers in the Civil War will be sold during an auction later this month.

The brothers — John Bell, a member of the 78th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and William Bell, a member of Company G with the Seventh Missouri Cavalry — sent letters to various family members from 1861 to 1865. Will Sullivan, owner of Will Sullivan Auction in Carthage, says no one has seen or read the letters in more than 70 years.

The letters reference various battles and casualties, conditions at various camps, including being camped south of Atlanta in 1864. One refers to Gen. Ambrose Burnside, a senior Union general, being removed from the battlefield because of a wound. Another refers to the famous Battle of Fredericksburg, considered one of the most one-sided battles in the war. Other letters describe other soldiers, the morale of the troops, troop movements and general conversations.

“All of these letters describe the same things to their mother, an uncle or a sister. Both brothers wrote to those family members fairly regularly,” Sullivan said. “It’s just kind of everyday stuff. They talk about where they’re at that day or where they’re camped. There may be little tidbits about different soldiers and maybe some scuffles, or somebody getting sick or somebody actually dying. 

“Every once in a while, a letter will mention something pretty cool. Gen. Burnside didn’t want to be removed from the battlefield, but his personal staff dragged him back from the front lines because he’d been shot. Sometimes, it was just talking about the weather or spending time on a railroad train.”

Letters well-preserved with original envelopes, stamps

Sullivan will sell together the letters during his upcoming summer online auction on Saturday, June 25. He said the letters are well-preserved with the original envelopes and stamps.

“Finding (Civil War) letters is not super rare,” Sullivan said. “About every soldier in the Civil War wrote letters. That’s really all they had to do in their spare time. There is a ton of letters out there. For a collector or a Civil War historian, to find a letter with any significance to the history of the war is what they’re looking for. That’s where they get a bit rare. 

“In rarity, I would say these are somewhere middle of the road. They don’t talk about Gen. (William Tecumseh) Sherman burning Atlanta to the ground or anything like that, but general stuff is mentioned. A lot of mention of military troop activities, movements, different commanders’ thoughts. To a historian, they’re very interesting. They’re not monotonous at all. They really do kind of give you a feel for what these guys are going through.”

Sullivan says the letters also detail what it was like for two young men to travel for the first time.

“This was quite an adventure, especially when they got deeper down south,” he said. “They were around a lot of African Americans, and these letters reflect how naïve they were about being around them, how different they were and how different the society was. It was quite a culture shock. Not only were they getting shot at every day, but they were around people they had not been around before, Southern-type people.

“For the most part, they weren’t a big fan of it.”

Letters found in bottom of World War II trunk

Sullivan learned about the existence of the letters about a month ago after a man was going through estate items after the death of a “shirt-tail” relative.

“There was a World War II military trunk that nobody had the key for,” Sullivan said. “Eventually, he got into it, and there was some World War II stuff — a jacket, a hat, a canteen, kind of the normal stuff that a GI would bring back with them. Then in the bottom, there was a lot of scrapbook-type stuff. That’s pretty common. People living during the Depression or the early 1900s tended to save everything that was printed. This trunk was put away in the attic. We don’t know who actually saved them.

“I asked the man to leave the letters with me, and I started reading through them in my spare time. I had to get one of my old English teachers in here to help me, because some of that early Victorian writing is very tough to read.”

Sullivan determined through his research that John Bell enlisted in 1862. The 78th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment was organized in Quincy on Sept. 1, 1862, then left the state by a steamboat along the Mississippi River for Louisville, Ky., arriving on September 19, 1862.

John Bell died at a Louisville camp in 1863. A memorial to the soldiers of the 78th Illinois is at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.

Brothers served in different military units

William Bell, the youngest of the brothers, also tried to enlist in the 78th Infantry, but the regiment was full.

“So he went down to Missouri and found a recruiting station somewhere down there from the southern Missouri cavalry,” Sullivan said. “That’s the reason two brothers were in different units.”

Sullivan says a typical Civil War letter in good condition is worth about $10 to $15. References to famous battles or distinguished generals could triple the value. He believes most of the interested buyers will be local.

“To somebody who lives in Georgia or California, these are not that cool,” Sullivan said. “I highly doubt the Gettysburg Museum is interested. They’re great, but after you read through them, you’re kind of over it. But if you live in Quincy, Hancock County or Adams County and you’re also a military historian, these are double cool.”