CSA Captain Elliott Johnston, Postwar Letters to Colonel John Mosby Concerning the Gettysburg Campaign 

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Jun 10, 2016 - Jun 11, 2016

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• Lot Description
  CSA Captain Elliott Johnston, Postwar Letters to Colonel John Mosby Concerning the Gettysburg Campaign 
  
  Lot of 3 retained manuscript copies of letters written by Elliott Johnston to Colonel John S. Mosby concerning the delivery of a vital message to General Early, ca 1896-1897.
   
  Major Pendleton Genl. Ewells Adj, Genl told me that Genl Ewell had an important message for me to take to Genl Early at York, Pa. wrote Capt. Elliot Johnston, When Major Pendleton gave me the message I say its importance and asked him, being desirous to make no mistake--to give me a memorandum of it---He did so, and said under no circumstances must the memorandum fall into the hands of the enemy. I told him If I got in a tight place I would swallow it. Now you know col. I could not have swallowed a letter (Wachapreague, VA). 
   
  Captain Elliot Johnston served as an aide on General Richard S. Ewell’s staff from 1862 until he was severely wounded in the Battle of Antietam and  was assigned to Stafford as a Captain and AAG on December 7, 1863. Working on an article concerning the Gettysburg campaign, Mosby contacted Johnston for more details regarding a statement in General Jubal Early’s official report.
   
  I started from Carlisle at about 10 a.m. with an escort of three of the headquarters couriers; with orders to pick up any cavalry I might meet, to reinforce me, wrote Johnston. About, I should think, half way from Carlisle to York, just the other side of a covered bridge over quite a stream of water, I saw some twelve or fifteen cavalry horses picketed. Thinking they might be Federals, I read my memorandum to my men, and told them we would make a dash for it, and if any one got through to carry the message to Early at York. Just then one or more of the cavalry came out of the store & I saw they were Confederates, but not in a fit condition to be of any service to me, so we rode on...I cannot remember if when I read the memorandum to the men, I destroyed it or not. As I met with no opposition on the road to York, if I did not destroy it, I may have given it to either Major Daniel or Genl Early, or destroyed it there, as my duty was done. I have no recollection about it, wrote Johnston. 

   
  Mosby for some reason or another was suspicious of the details and wrote a second letter to Johnston. Perturbed, Johnston wrote: 
   
  It seems to me that the ‘letter’ question is pretty definitely settled by a question you asked me in your first letter – ‘What escort did you have, it must have ben a pretty strong one to carry so important an order’ – I told you I had three (or two) headquarter couriers with the very indefinite directions to ‘pick up any cavalry I found on the road.’ I do not know if any blame is being attached TO ME in this matter – if so it is very unjust – I delivered the orders as given me, Major Daniel knows this – and to use a homily figure – ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ – Genl Early got there (Copy, Wachapreague, VA, January 27, 1897).
   
  Johnston wrote a third note to Mosby: 
   
  I thought from your persistent resistance that I could not have reached York at the time I said I did, that possibly some blame was being attached to me...If it is so important to know what route I took, you may, through Bradley Johnson, ascertain it in this way – I met an uncle of Jimmy(?) Albert on the road & he told me was living ‘near there.’Jimmy Albert was, I think, in Snowden Andrews Battery of Artillery. If he is alive, Bradley Johnson will probably know him and could ascertain where this Uncle then lived. I will write to Major Daniel and ask if he remembers at what time he & I had the talk on the Court House steps at York, in the afternoon of June 29th. (Synopsis of reply).
  
  For a detailed look at the contents of the lot, go to: http://www.historybroker.com/collection/gresham/papers/5elliottb/elliottb.htm.
  
  Bessie E. Johnston Gresham Collection of Confederate Manuscripts, Photographs, & Relics
  
  Lots 89-115
  
  Bessie E. Johnston Gresham was born in Baltimore, MD in 1848 in a home sympathetic to the Southern cause. Union forces imprisoned one of her brothers for aiding the South, and her brother Elliott was a Confederate officer who lost a leg at the battle of Antietam. She became an ardent and unreconstructed Confederate, and, in 1887, she married Thomas Baxter Gresham, a Confederate veteran from Macon, GA. She was actively involved in the Baltimore chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and amassed a notable collection of Confederate manuscripts, photographs, and relics at the Gresham home at 815 Park Avenue in Baltimore. Most of her items were left to the Museum of the Confederacy, the Maryland Historical Society, and other institutions. This important collection of Johnston-Gresham family and Confederate-related material, was passed down through Bessie Johnston Gresham’s step-son, Leroy Gresham, before it was acquired by the consignor.
  
  The collection features over 50 CDVs accumulated by Bessie and Thomas Gresham, offered as Lots 89-100. Some are wardate, and others were apparently acquired in Baltimore soon after the war's end. Some CDVs include patriotic inscriptions and quotations written by Bessie on reverse, which showcase her deep feeling of love and devotion to the Southern Cause.
  
  In a June 1862 letter delivered through the Union blockade, Elliott Johnston, serving as aide-de-camp to CSA General Richard B. Garnett, mentioned collecting photos of CSA generals for his then 14-year-old sister Bessie.
  
  In a 1926 issue of Confederate Veteran magazine, a memorial essay described Bessie's girlhood during the war:
  
  "One of her brothers, who was on General Ewell’s staff, suffered the loss of a leg at the battle of Sharpsburg; her two other brothers were active Southern sympathizers and were under constant surveillance by Federal authorities for giving all possible aid to the Confederacy; her home was a center from which radiated help. “
  
  "Reared in this atmosphere of deep love for our ‘cause,’ she became an ardent and unreconstructed Confederate. "
  
  During her girlhood, Bessie was acquainted with many Southern generals and received from them letters, photographs, and autographs, as well as a number of gifts. 

  Condition

  Very good.
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