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UNION SOLDIER LETTER - 2ND LIEUT. CHARLES HENRY RICHARDSON, 26TH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY

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Dated “Custom House, New Orleans / Dec. 15^th, 1862.” Addressed to “Dear Mother.” 4 pp. In ink on lined paper, 5” x 8. Exhibits fold-marks. Else VG & entirely legible.

A resident of Lowell, MA, Charles H. Richardson was an 18 year-old machinist who enlisted as a private and was mustered into Co. “A”, 6^th MA, 4/22/1861. He later mustered into Co. “A”, 26^th MA Infantry, 10/18/1861, mustering out at the end in Savannah, GA, 8/26/1865. Along the way he was promoted to Corporal, Sergeant, First Sergeant, and 2^nd Lieutenant, 12/11/1864. Following the war he was active in the GAR, and commanded Post #185 in Lowell, Mass, died 1/28/1910.

Richardson’s 6^th Mass. was a three-month unit that fought its way was through Baltimore to the relief of Washington in late April 1861. His second, the 26^th, Mass, was in early 1862 assigned to the Dept. of the Gulf, attached to the 19^th Army Corps. During service it lost 64 men killed and mortally wounded and 185 to disease for a total of 254.

Text: In this letter home Richardson writes an extraordinary enlisted man’s assessment of General Benjamin Butler’s corrupt activities while serving as Military Governor of Louisiana in 1862].

“Dear Mother….Bank’s Division in coming up the river. Part of it has come up today. The paper says that he has got 40 thousand men with him. They have commenced landing here today. There is a rumor going that Banks is going to supersede Butler….I think it is very likely for old Ben has played it pretty steep here. He has made money hand over fist ever since he has been here & he has let no chance escape to make money.

He has within a month sent a schooner loaded with provisions to the other side of the Lake. It is all done in his brother’s name. The load was valued here at Seventy thousand dollars on the other side it is worth four hundred thousand dollars so you can see there was quite a little speculation. Farragut has reported him to Washington and I guess that has something to do with his being relieved but you probably know more about it than we do here…”

And excellent collectible for savants of the shenanigans of the ever-duplicitous Gen.  Ben Butler. In protective sleeve, accompanied by documentation.  [jp][ph:L]

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