[CIVIL WAR, TEXAS] Senate Booklet re: "Texas Adventure"

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Day 1: Historic & Early Americana

By Fleischer's Auctions

Apr 24, 2026

Set Reminder 2026-04-24 09:00:00 2026-04-24 09:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Day 1: Historic & Early Americana https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/fleischers-auctions/day-1-historic-early-americana-20869
Day one of Fleischer's 2026 Spring premier auction includes early American artifacts, documents, signatures, ephemera, and weaponry. Rare material relating to African American history is featured, as well as fine examples of antique photography. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com

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• Lot Description

  War Department. Letter of the Secretary of War, Communicating, In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 14th of December, 1870, information relative to an alleged unlawful traffic with rebels in the State of Texas during the late war, entered into by Harris Hoyt, Byron Sprague, and others. [Washington, D.C., 1871]. 8vo. 

   

  A booklet from the third session of the 41st Congress detailing a report from 1865 regarding "an alleged unlawful traffic with rebels in the State of Texas during the late war, entered into by Harris Hoyt, William Sprague, a Senator of the United States, Byron Sprague, William H. Reynolds, and others". The booklet contains testimonies from the alleged criminals, evidence such as sales receipts and cargo lists, and charging proceedings.

   

  This tract was published a few years following the alleged crime in response to William Sprague backing a Senate candidate. Sprague called for an investigation to clear his name; conveniently, as stated on the first page, Secretary of War William Belknap attested "that neither the papers therein referred to, nor any record of them, can now be found in the War Department." Belknap is not remembered for his humility, since he would later resign and even face impeachment charges in 1876 due to his involvement in receiving kickback payments from a tradership contract. 

   

  The "Texas adventure" started when Harris Hoyt, originally a Texas resident, alleged he was thrown out of the state due to his Union loyalties and "wanted to get permission to return to Texas and get out the balance of [his] family and boarders, and to render aid to the Union people in Texas, and to take to them what they needed to enable them to get away, and to relieve those who could not get away, and to get my property away." He applied for this permission to the Secretary of War at the time, Edwin Stanton, and was denied. 

   

  While in Washington, D.C., Hoyt met with Senator William Sprague and applied to him "for no other reason than that [he] knew him to be a man of means." Sprague had Hoyt come back to Rhode Island with him, where Hoyt brought along Charles Prescott and Sprague introduced them to William H. Reynolds and Byron Sprague. According to Prescott, "an agreement was made that Sprague, Reynolds, and others were to furnish the money, and Hoyt and [Prescott] to do the work, for which Hoyt and [Prescott] were each to receive one-quarter of the profits, after paying six per cent. on the capital invested." 

   

  The grand scheme, according to Hoyt, involved him taking contraband cargo into Matamoros, Mexico; selling it all there for gold; purchasing raw cotton for cheap; sailing to Texas, where he could process it using carding machines he bought in Connecticut and transported via wagon to Texas; then taking the refined cotton back to New York. What the government charged Hoyt with, however, was taking this contraband cargo directly to Texas and selling it to Confederate forces there, then "purchase and procure cotton in said Texas, and transport the same, partly by land to Matamoras, in Mexico, and thence to the United States, and partly by water, and in violation of the Federal blockade". In six of the charges against Hoyt, he pled "not guilty" to four, argued one was too vague of a charge and another exceeded the statute of limitations. 

   

  [Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Books, Bibles, Soldiers' Bibles, Prayer Books, Ephemera, Pamphlets, Publications, Booklets, Memoirs]

  Condition

  Request Condition Report

  Missing wrappers. 

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