Approx. 25+ items.
John Franklin Godfrey (1839-1885), son of noted Judge John Edwards Godfrey of Bangor, ME, lived the life of an adventurer. Taking to sea at the age of 16, he later became a sheep rancher in Argentina with his brother. Returning home to enlist in the Union Army, he was commissioned on December 18, 1861, as 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Battery, 1st Maine Mounted Artillery. The regiment was part of General Benjamin Butler’s force to occupy New Orleans in May, 1862.
Being short of cavalry troops and his forces suffering from mounted bushwhacker attacks, General Butler put out a call for volunteers to form independent cavalry companies from Union soldiers and local loyalists. Tiring of garrison life, Godfrey leapt at the chance for action, and opened a recruiting station in New Orleans. He soon had a motley collection of civilians, Union infantrymen, Mexicans, Spaniards, and Confederate deserters that he whipped into a force that earned a name for itself on both sides of the conflict.
After the independent cavalry companies were consolidated, Godfrey’s company was designated Company “C,” 1st Louisiana Cavalry (Union), but each company largely continued independent operations. Godfrey’s men ranged far and wide on scouting missions, disruption of Rebel supply lines, and anti-guerrilla activities. Their most common foe was the local Rebel cavalry company near Baton Rouge, commanded by Capt. John B. Cage. Originally known as the “Plains Store Rangers,” they were later designated Company “C,” 14th Confederate Cavalry. Cage was later promoted to Lt. Colonel of the 14th Cavalry.
Godfrey also rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel later in the war. He was appointed Lt. Colonel of the 2nd Maine Cavalry on December 18, 1863, but resigned for health reasons on May 4, 1864. After the war, he convinced his brother to leave Buenos Aires and join him on a farm in Iowa. In 1865, he left the farm to his brother, and set off to find his fortune out West. He joined the Powder River expedition of 1865 and became an Indian fighter out of necessity, before finally settling down to practice law. Godfrey was City Attorney for Los Angeles from 1876 to 1880. GAR Post # 93 in Pasadena, CA, was named for Godfrey shortly after his death in 1885.
This large archive consists of war-date letters from Godfrey to his father, including his “sort-of journals,” where he writes long, first-hand accounts of campaigns in Louisiana. Many of these letters are accompanied by typewritten transcripts, which are apparently rough drafts for the book of his correspondence published by his granddaughters in 1993.
In an archive that reads like a real-life Errol Flynn movie, Godfrey’s adventurous spirit and drive shines through. In the first letter, dated June 19, 1862, from New Orleans, Lt. Godfrey tells his parents that he wishes the regiment had been sent to the Army of the Potomac:
I do not like this life we are leading here, for it is not an active soldier’s life, but a mere show. The letter of November 7, 1862, is Godfrey’s first as a cavalry officer in this lot. Writing from
near Thibodaux, on Butler’s La Fourche campaign, the Yankee cavalier was loving life, not only as a cavalryman, but as a Captain with an independent command. Godfrey remarks on the ever-growing flood of slaves abandoning the nearby plantations, and following the Union Army:
On our march from Donaldsonville to here, the greater proportion of the Negroes followed us. It was the funniest sight I ever saw. The whole country as far as the eye could reach in our rear on both sides of the bayou, was full of carts filled to overflowing with wooly heads, little and big, men and women. Hundreds more were walking on the levy, all blessing the pretty Yankees, and in perfect rapture of joy and excitement. The consequences is that all the plantations are left without hands, and millions of dollars worth of sugar cane are going to ruin… there are several very intelligent ones here, and appear to appreciate fully their position. This letter is followed by a large partial manuscript, titled
Gen’l Butler’s LaFouche Expedition, along with a typed transcription. Pages 1-12 and 17-20 are present, with the same style of content as the previous letter.
On November 30, Godfrey answers his parents’ questions about the two black regiments that they had heard were raised by Butler in New Orleans:
The 1st and 2nd Black Regiments are guarding the Opalusas railroad. They are just as good for that purpose as white men. As to how they will fight I cannot tell. The majority of our officers whom I have heard say anything about it seem to think they will fight well. I think they will try them pretty soon and determine the question as regards the American negro’s fighting propensities. On March 17, 1863, he writes home that he is setting out from Baton Rouge as the advance guard for the attack on Port Hudson. The next day, he writes a ten-page letter about the constant skirmishing against Rebel infantry and cavalry they encountered near Port Hudson. Commenting on the tenacity of the men, he says:
There is one thing that is certain, and that is that these people are terribly in earnest, and have got to lend every energy which we possess in order to succeed. In his April 7 letter, Godfrey relates how the regiment’s Major is a worthless, petty man, despised by officers and men alike. He calls the 2nd Rhode Island cavalry
a most miserable institution. They are continually deserting to the enemy, and seem to be a lawless, discontented set. He also mentions how a squad of his men was talked into an ambush, but escaped by charging past the enemy cavalry while they were reloading. Lt. Carlton, in charge of the squad, yelled
Don’t let them take you alive, boys! as they rushed past the Rebels.
Godfrey’s letter of May 4th relates an incredible meeting between his cavalry company and their nemesis, Capt. John Cage’s company of the 14th Confederate Cavalry. Godfrey had gone under a flag to truce to meet the local enemy cavalry commanders, and found that one of them (Cage) commanded the cavalry company that he had often fought against. The next day, Cage and his men came to visit Godfrey’s command under a flag of truce:
This morning, he came to our lines with dispatches, and I got up a good dinner and carried it out, and we had a nice time. The men mingled together, and explained to each other how they did this, and why they did not do this, in the different fights where they had been opposed to each other… What a funny thing war is, is it not? Today we are endeavoring to kill one another for our country’s sake, and tomorrow we are feasting together, and talking it over as a good joke. In the same letter, Godfrey remarks on the arrival in Baton Rouge of Grierson’s cavalry brigade at the end of their famous raid through Mississippi. Grierson was promoted to Brigadier General due to this operation, and the 1st Louisiana would fall under his command during the Port Hudson campaign.
May’s letters cover the initial stages of the Port Hudson campaign. Events include an account of a raid to seize 100 Rebel cattle before they could reach the defenders; a detailed account of General Augur’s offensive on the plains before the Rebel fortifications; and the first ill-fated assault on Port Hudson.
The June 5, 1863, letter is an exceptional one. The 1st Louisiana Cavalry took part in Grierson’s expedition against the town of Clinton, 22 miles from Port Hudson. The Union column met a substantially larger Confederate force than it anticipated. Godfrey’s troops were ordered to dismount and fight a delaying action while the rest of the force retreated. They were completely surrounded and cut to pieces. In part:
By this time the greater part of my men were killed or wounded, and the rebels charging up were within twenty feet of us, yelling and calling us all kind of names, so I put my last cartridge in my carbine and fired at an officer some ways ahead of his men, waving his sword and cheering. I then said to the men, Now boys, if we can go through them we must try it now, and let every man save himself if he can. Godfrey and the dozen men left in his command broke up and made a run for it, encountering squads of Rebel soldiers searching the woods and bayou for them. Slowly, the men were killed or wounded, and only Godfrey and a wounded trooper were left.
After traveling about a half mile, they came upon an old Negro woman who led them to her master’s house. The men were all gone, leaving the mother and daughter (and the slaves) at home. After drinking some water offered them, Godfrey writes,
I turned to the ladies and asked them if they knew Capt. Cage of the Confederate cavalry. The young lady said she did, so I told her when she saw him, to give him Capt. Godfrey’s compliments and tell him how near I was to being taken. Godfrey’s wounded companion later collapsed, and Godfrey, being too weak to carry him, hid him in the woods and proceeded alone. The exhausted Godfrey was later picked up by a detachment of Illinois cavalry:
I began to think of all my brave fellows that had fallen, how bravely they had fought, and how pitiful the wounded looked when they had to be left behind. When I began to think how long and faithfully they had served and fought… I cried I believe for the first time since I was a child. A lengthy detailed journal of the Clinton expedition in Godfrey’s hand is included, with typed transcript. The 28-page journal is numbered pp 5-33, the first four pages being absent.
On July 4, 1863, Godfrey and his men were still at the siege of Port Hudson. He relates how, last week, when ex-mayor of Portland, ME, and temperance firebrand General Neal Dow was slightly wounded, he ran off the field and hid out at a nearby plantation to “convalesce,” and had been there ever since.
The other evening, when on his way from one of his new friends’ house to another, a small squad of rebels gobbled him up, and took him with them into the Confederacy, where I hope he will stay the remainder of his life. On December 18, 1863, Godfrey was commissioned Lt. Colonel of the 2nd Maine Cavalry, but the hardships of campaigning in the swamps had taken their toll. He had taken ill at Port Hudson and was hospitalized with “the fever.” He writes his father on April 23, 1864, with a diagnosis from the doctor:
If I stay here and go into active service, I may do very well for a little while, as long as the excitement lasts, but when I break down, I will go all at once, and it will be doubtful if I ever get up again. The next week, he resigned his commission, married Mollie Milliken, and bought a sheep farm in Iowa.
Affiliated items in this lot include a copy of
The Civil War Letters of John Franklin Godfrey, which includes the text of the letters in this lot, as well as other, post-war letters. Also included are a June 21, 1862 copy of the Bangor Whig and Courier newspaper; a modern newspaper article regarding the display of Godfrey’s letters as a teen-aged sailor; and several pages of typed transcripts of Godfrey’s letters that are featured in the book, but not present in this lot.