UNION SOLDIER LETTER - PRIVATE FRANCIS AUBIN, 22ND NEW YORK INFANTRY; MORTALLY WOUNDED AT SOUTH MOUNTAIN, MD, 9 /14/ 1862

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Item Code: 467-16

Dated Alexandria, VA, March 16 1862.” Addressed to “Dear Sister Eliza.” (3 pp.)  and “Dear Sister Tilda” (1 pp, on back of pg 3 of first letter). In ink on lined paper, 8 x 10. Exhibits fold-marks, else VG and entirely legible.

Born in Canada, Francis Aubin, age 21, enlisted and mustered into Co. “E”, 22nd New York Infantry, at Glenn Falls, New York, 6/ 6 / 1861. He was mortally wounded at South Mountain, MD, 9/14/1862, and died the following day. His mother (Delane Aubin) applied for a pension on 10/15/1862.

Aubin’s regiment, the 22nd New York Infantry, was a two year unit mustered at Troy, NY, in June 1861. After which it was engaged at the 1st Battle of  Bull Run, and in the following year in the Valley Campaign against Stonewall Jackson preceding the Seven Days Battles for Richmond. Engaged at the Bull Run, it next took part in the 1862 Maryland Campaign against Lee, in which Private Aubin was killed at South Mountain. Attached to the Third Corps the unit went to fight at Fredericksburg in December, and took part in the Chancellorsville Campaign the following spring. At point the 22nd was mustered out of service with the three year men transferred to the 76th & 93rd New York. During its two year service the unit lost 73 men killed and mortally wounded and 29 by disease for a total of 102.

The letter dates from the beginning of McClellan’s movement south on his Peninsula Campaign, which would peter disastrously out at the gates of Richmond….Frank Aubin opens by telling of unburied Union bodies encountered on the old Bull Run Battlefield.

“...We whent to Bull Run last Wednesday and whent and seen the field of battle where they had to battle the 21 of last July, and I tell you it looks tuff, for we can see dead bodies all over the field, the rabbles did not bury hardly one of our men at the battle of Bull Run. They only buried their own men but never mind. We get ahold of them some of these days and we serve them the same----Elisa I whent in Centerville hotel last thursday where Genral Buregard use to make his headquarters and I found a secesh revolver. I found it in a trunk where it was not lost, but of course I took it. It was loaded so I fired it off and load it again & shall keep it loaded and get charged to shoot old jeff Davis. The man who owned it before I did was A. Graere Jr. and now it belongs to F Aubin Jr. I have been offered 20 dollars for it five or six times...but will not sell it. It don’t coss me one cent. I want to keep it to shoot old jeff and I will shoot the old cuss if I get a sight of him…”

Aubin then notes the number of troops pouring through Alexandria as McClellan kicks off his “On to Richmond” 1862 Peninsula Campaign. He doesn’t know quite where they are going but has no doubt of their final destination and victory….

“About 40 thousant troops that came into Alexandria yesterday and they are still coming. We expect to go on a ship tomorrow morning, our division is the first to go on board, we do not know where we shall land...we do not care where we are going, we will go where ever Genral McClellan orders us, we will not stop until we get to richmon, and we will get to richmon, there is no use talking when we undertake to do any thing we do it,---we are not going to fool around any more. As I am tired and I want to write a few lines to Tilda I will close to you. Goodbye for this time / Frank Aubin.”

A poignant letter from a determined private of the 22nd New York….made doubly so not only by McClellan’s coming fiasco….but by Aubin’s later fate at South Mountain. Superb memorial of a Union private (one of many)who once marched  “On to Richmond”  but never got there. In protective sleeve.  [jp][ph:L]

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