Details
BRAGG, BRAXTON, General, C.S.A.. Autograph letter signed in full to Henry Jackson Hunt (later Brigadier General, U.S.Army), [Fort San Carlos de] Barrancas [Florida], Saturday Evening" [21 April l86l]. 3 pages, 4to, two small tears at fold intersections of each leaf, with the original yellow envelope addressed by Bragg and signed in upper corner "B. Bragg," and with four small newpaper clippings (apparently from a Pensacola newspaper, "The Secession of Virginia," "North Carolina with the South," etc.
AS CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT, TWO OLD COMRADES RALLY TO DIFFERENT FLAGS
An exceptional pair of letters, written a week after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, poignantly illustrating the painful rift between friends caused by the outbreak of hostilities between North and South. "How strange are the mutations of life that we should be in hostile array against each other. A few short months since [we were] companions in arms, and almost brothers in friendship, it is hard to realize the fact that we are in hectic array against each other. But so it is, and tho' I would have taken a oath that my old friend Hunt could never be an instrument of oppression in the hands of a Black Republic.....Each one of us of course will follow the dictates of his own conscience. But for fear you may rest under a misapprehension in regard to this move in the South [secession and the outbreak of hostilities], I will give you a few facts....The people en mass, are the leaders - and every man is now united in the cause. You may destroy us but cannot conquer - every class is represented in the ranks [of the Confederate army] - many of my privates are men of income....I do not say this my dear old friend to influence you.....We feel we canot live with the North in peace and we desire to be left alone to pursue the even tenor of our way. We submitted until we could submit no longer, and we decided to quit, and now we merely ask to be let alone.
"We have asked for peace, but we shall not decline war. You President [Lincoln] has decided upon war. His orders to you are to get you into position and war is inevitable. His policy is at last declared - to 'subjugate us'; and the result is that Virginia has at once seceded by an almost unanimous vote, and taken the Navy yard & vessels at Norfolk, and report says, Harpers Ferry. North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas have followed, and are pouring about troops by the thousand to defend themselves. Maryland has forbidden Northern troops to her borders, and every avenue to Washington is closed. Hundreds of officers from these states are resigning daily, and the whole country is on the eve of a long and bloody civil war....Fort Sumpter has surrendered to a 'military necessity' - would to God the whole question could be submitted to three plain sensible men to settle justly. There is room enough in this world for us all to live in peace and why should we not do so? I enclose you a few slips of news [newspaper clippings], and only wish I would see you and my other old friends at the social board. For friends I still believe them, tho I think them mistaken in their course...."
[with]
HUNT, HENRY JACKSON, General, U.S. Army. Autograph letter signed ("H. Hunt") TO BRAXTON BRAGG, Fort Pickens, [South Carolina], 23 April l861. 3 pages, 4to, small tears at fold intersections, enclosed in a contemporary envelope marked "Major Nichols" (one of Hunt's aides).
"My Dear Bragg....I do not doubt the nature of your feelings for I judge of them by my own. How strange it is! We have been united in our views of almost all subjects....We still have, I trust, a private regard for each other, which will continue, whatever course our sense of duty may dictate, yet in one short year after exchanging at your house assurances of friendship, here we are face to face, with every prospect of a bloody collision....All of [my family] have fought in the North, the battles of the South, and now find they are left to bear the imputation ...of having taken sides not merely against their section, but against their country. Yet even so I do not despair of the future. I still think...that clearer views of our interest and necessities will reunite us. I acknowledge that the people of the cotton states are apparently united....unfortunately the course of events in the South has enabled the leaders to drag the people with them. With all their wrongs, I think the South has not been just to themselves in breaking off ...at the first partial defeats in the lap of the executive....It is not a case in which I, born under the flag can feel justified in deserting it, however much my sympathies were with my Southern friends in the immediate question at issue, and however much it pains me to be angered against them.....I firmly believe that this unity of our people will be eventually restored. We ma have to suffer much. We may separate with or without further conflict, but we will be reunited, if necessary under new institutions, strong enough to secure all our rights. We shall again be one of the great powers of the Earth and the name of America will supersede that of Northerner and Southerner....We must each, as you say, act accordingly to the dictates of our consciences.
Although you think my course a wrong one you know that I never have felt and I do not feel now hostile to the South, her institutions, or her people nor can I have toward them the feelings of 'an 'alien enemy'. I trust and I believe notwithstanding the dark prospects before us, and although blood may flow like water, that the time will come -- if neither of us fall in the struggle - when we will meet again not merely as friends, which I am sure we will continue to be, but as fellow citizens of a great prosperous happy and united country...."
Both Bragg and Hunt had attended West Point (Bragg graduated in l837, Hunt two years later) and both served with distinction in the Mexican-American war. Hunt was part of the Army garrison at Fort Pickens. On March 7, Bragg was appointed Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy and placed in command of the coast from Pensacola to Mobile, and made his headquarters at Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, across Pensacola Bay from Hunt's post at Fort Pickens. (The guns at Fort Barrancas had been spiked and the post evacuated upon the secession of Florida in January.) Bragg's eventful career in the Confedrate army need not be detailed here. Hunt went on to become the Army of the Potomac's Chief of Artillery; he served with distinction from First Manassas (Bull Run) through the war. This remarkable exchange of letters between the two friends has been partly published in E.G. Longacre, The Man Behind the Guns: A Biography of General Henry J. Hunt, Commander of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, pp.82-83. (2)
AS CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT, TWO OLD COMRADES RALLY TO DIFFERENT FLAGS
An exceptional pair of letters, written a week after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, poignantly illustrating the painful rift between friends caused by the outbreak of hostilities between North and South. "How strange are the mutations of life that we should be in hostile array against each other. A few short months since [we were] companions in arms, and almost brothers in friendship, it is hard to realize the fact that we are in hectic array against each other. But so it is, and tho' I would have taken a oath that my old friend Hunt could never be an instrument of oppression in the hands of a Black Republic.....Each one of us of course will follow the dictates of his own conscience. But for fear you may rest under a misapprehension in regard to this move in the South [secession and the outbreak of hostilities], I will give you a few facts....The people en mass, are the leaders - and every man is now united in the cause. You may destroy us but cannot conquer - every class is represented in the ranks [of the Confederate army] - many of my privates are men of income....I do not say this my dear old friend to influence you.....We feel we canot live with the North in peace and we desire to be left alone to pursue the even tenor of our way. We submitted until we could submit no longer, and we decided to quit, and now we merely ask to be let alone.
"We have asked for peace, but we shall not decline war. You President [Lincoln] has decided upon war. His orders to you are to get you into position and war is inevitable. His policy is at last declared - to 'subjugate us'; and the result is that Virginia has at once seceded by an almost unanimous vote, and taken the Navy yard & vessels at Norfolk, and report says, Harpers Ferry. North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas have followed, and are pouring about troops by the thousand to defend themselves. Maryland has forbidden Northern troops to her borders, and every avenue to Washington is closed. Hundreds of officers from these states are resigning daily, and the whole country is on the eve of a long and bloody civil war....Fort Sumpter has surrendered to a 'military necessity' - would to God the whole question could be submitted to three plain sensible men to settle justly. There is room enough in this world for us all to live in peace and why should we not do so? I enclose you a few slips of news [newspaper clippings], and only wish I would see you and my other old friends at the social board. For friends I still believe them, tho I think them mistaken in their course...."
[with]
HUNT, HENRY JACKSON, General, U.S. Army. Autograph letter signed ("H. Hunt") TO BRAXTON BRAGG, Fort Pickens, [South Carolina], 23 April l861. 3 pages, 4to, small tears at fold intersections, enclosed in a contemporary envelope marked "Major Nichols" (one of Hunt's aides).
"My Dear Bragg....I do not doubt the nature of your feelings for I judge of them by my own. How strange it is! We have been united in our views of almost all subjects....We still have, I trust, a private regard for each other, which will continue, whatever course our sense of duty may dictate, yet in one short year after exchanging at your house assurances of friendship, here we are face to face, with every prospect of a bloody collision....All of [my family] have fought in the North, the battles of the South, and now find they are left to bear the imputation ...of having taken sides not merely against their section, but against their country. Yet even so I do not despair of the future. I still think...that clearer views of our interest and necessities will reunite us. I acknowledge that the people of the cotton states are apparently united....unfortunately the course of events in the South has enabled the leaders to drag the people with them. With all their wrongs, I think the South has not been just to themselves in breaking off ...at the first partial defeats in the lap of the executive....It is not a case in which I, born under the flag can feel justified in deserting it, however much my sympathies were with my Southern friends in the immediate question at issue, and however much it pains me to be angered against them.....I firmly believe that this unity of our people will be eventually restored. We ma have to suffer much. We may separate with or without further conflict, but we will be reunited, if necessary under new institutions, strong enough to secure all our rights. We shall again be one of the great powers of the Earth and the name of America will supersede that of Northerner and Southerner....We must each, as you say, act accordingly to the dictates of our consciences.
Although you think my course a wrong one you know that I never have felt and I do not feel now hostile to the South, her institutions, or her people nor can I have toward them the feelings of 'an 'alien enemy'. I trust and I believe notwithstanding the dark prospects before us, and although blood may flow like water, that the time will come -- if neither of us fall in the struggle - when we will meet again not merely as friends, which I am sure we will continue to be, but as fellow citizens of a great prosperous happy and united country...."
Both Bragg and Hunt had attended West Point (Bragg graduated in l837, Hunt two years later) and both served with distinction in the Mexican-American war. Hunt was part of the Army garrison at Fort Pickens. On March 7, Bragg was appointed Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy and placed in command of the coast from Pensacola to Mobile, and made his headquarters at Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, across Pensacola Bay from Hunt's post at Fort Pickens. (The guns at Fort Barrancas had been spiked and the post evacuated upon the secession of Florida in January.) Bragg's eventful career in the Confedrate army need not be detailed here. Hunt went on to become the Army of the Potomac's Chief of Artillery; he served with distinction from First Manassas (Bull Run) through the war. This remarkable exchange of letters between the two friends has been partly published in E.G. Longacre, The Man Behind the Guns: A Biography of General Henry J. Hunt, Commander of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, pp.82-83. (2)