CIVIL WAR: SOLDIER'S ARCHIVE.


GOFF, WILLIAM H. 1853-1927. 58 Autograph Letters Signed ("William H. Goff," "Wm H. Goff," "Will"), to his mother and sister, approx. 217 pp recto and verso, most 8vo (conjoining leaves), various places including Newbern, Saybrook Island, SC, Alexandria, VA, Gloucester Point, VA, Deep Bottom, VA, Petersberg, VA, and Richmond, among others, March 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865, giving vivid descriptions of battlefield events and life in camp, some soiling and smudging throughout but generally legible. With typed transcriptions of all letters.William Goff mustered into company H of the Massachusetts 24th Infantry in October of 1861 as a private. Goff sends one chatty letter in March of 1862 from Roanoke Island, but the correspondence begins in earnest in December of 1862 when he is at Newburn and mentions that he has survived an injury and will not be discharged after all. Perhaps because he is writing to his mother and his sister, the earlier letters do not often mention bloodshed and battle, though they do give vivid details of camp life. From July 7, 1864, Deep Bottom, VA: "The 4th of July passed off without much note here. Did not even fire a salute in honor of the day. We had hominy and pork for dinner, baked beans for breakfast, and coffee and hardtack for supper and then we went on picket and spent the night on watch. Did not get any sleep for they thought that the Rebels were coming down on us but they did no such thing."From July 22, 1864: "Gen Grant paid us a visit the other day but I was asleep and did not see him. We have got a very good camp here now. We have our shelter tents raised about two feet from the ground and then we have our bed raised about the same height made out of poles and rails and boards, if we can get them. And then we cut some grass or straw and lay on top and then we have a tip top bed. Then we go out in the woods and cut some poles and crotcher and some green brush and make us a good shade over our tents so that it makes them quite nice."As the war drags on, however, he cannot avoid writing of the dangers he has experienced.From August 27, 1864: "When we got to our part of the line we pitched our camp in the rear of the breastworks in a revene so as to get out of danger. They kept up firing all night in the front so it was rather hard work to get much sleep. / We could lay in our tents and see our mortar shells go over into the rebel works and explode. The rebs would then fire back. Sunday morning at 8:00 we went in there for 24 hrs. A man had to keep pretty close, if he did not he would get popped at. We could see the fires of Petersburg very plain and it don't look but a short distance off. We lay in the trenches until 9:00 at night when we was released and went back to camp and packed up and marched most all night." Another letter mentions 200 Union dead left on a field.By January 12, 1865, the regular infantrymen like Goff know that the war is coming to an end: "You would say, if you could see the rebels that are coming into our lines every day, that the war could not last much longer. They tell some pretty hard stories about not having enough to eat or wear. They say that they are taking all the tings out of Richmond and sending them south. There was forty-four of them come down from the front today and some days there has been as many as seventy-four. And if it comes on cold weather, there will be a great many more." Complete transcriptions of all letters accompany this lot.