Lot of 75+ pages and related papers.
Dr. William D. Tucker (1841-1918) enlisted as Assistant Surgeon in the 154th Tennessee Senior Volunteers. The 154th was a state militia unit founded in 1842, and when mustered into Confederate service in May 1861, wanted to keep its original number. It also had the appellation “Senior” added to its name, to denote that its high number did not mean it was a new unit. Tucker was promoted to full Surgeon at Shelbyville, TN in 1863, and his promotion, which is signed by Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon and CSA Surgeon General Preston Moore is included with this lot.
Tucker had been detached to take sick soldiers to the army hospital in Corinth, according to included orders dated April 4, 1862 and signed by General Benjamin F. Cheatham, thereby missing the battle of Shiloh. He returned to his regiment immediately afterward, and a substantial part of this archive is the casualty reports from each company of the 154th, listing the dead and wounded by name and rank.
Multiple documents are signed by Marcus Joseph Wright, Lt. Col. of the 154th TN Senior Volunteers. Wright served on Cheatham’s staff and was promoted to Brigadier General on December 13, 1862. After the war, he was employed in securing Confederate records for the official US Army report on the Civil War.
Other documents are Tucker’s partially printed parole, dated May 13, 1865, signed by Union Brigadier General Henry Bertram; a partially printed June 1865 “carry permit,” allowing Tucker to own a revolver and 100 rounds of ammo, issued by the Union provost Marshal; and war-date reports on the populations of sick and wounded at various Confederate military hospitals in the Western theater.
Post-war items include a large folio scrapbook full of newspaper clippings from the first half of the 20th century related to the Confederacy, and notices of Jefferson Davis’s death. A 1915 5pp letter with Corinth, MS postmark details the Battle of Corinth, with a focus on the fight at Battery Robinette. The letter describes how Col. Rogers of the 2nd Texas Infantry grabbed the fallen colors of his regiment and rode them to the walls of the fort, leading his men in a doomed charge. The lot also includes several sheets of 20th century, facsimile Confederate $10 bills.