American Historical Ephemera & Photography

CDV, standing portrait of Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer. New York: M.B. Brady, E. & H.T. Anthony, 1862. 2 1/8 x 3 3/8 in. CDV on cardstock mount (some toning to margins). 

[With:] Letter written and signed by Eli Caress, addressed to his wife Sarah A. Caress. Camp Mcauliff, 23 January 1862. 6 pages, 5 x 8 in., old folds, each page with small pinholes to left margin, occasional spotting. Caress writes, in part: 

...There was a battle the other day at the Cumberland Gap an[d] we gained the day an[d] got Zollicoffer killed an[d]
took 400 prisoners and all of his wagons and teams an[d] all his artillery an[d] all his other arms an[d] we are looking to
hear of another one every day an[d] when we get our sick sent home we will then go on with our boys an[d] help fite [sic]
for that is what I came for an[d] I want to get it done with an[d] get to the ones I love so dear... tell dody that I dreamed of being at home with her candy an[d] that she was siting on my knee an[d] talking to me just like she youse [sic] to do when I was at home...I was on guard last nite an[d] yesterday an[d] only got to 1 ¾ of an hour an I got the privalige [sic] of resting till too [sic] o’clock. But when I came to my tent I found one of my bunk mates as sick as you ever saw any body that today he had the clergyman lines and
bad at that. We have to work with him just like a child an[d] I have to write between lines...Since writing the CA home there has been too [sic] deaths in camp. One __ of our company Arch Cunningham an
one of Cap Dainses, his name I don't know...

Eli Caress enlisted on 10/31/1861 as a private and mustered into Company A, 50th Indiana Infantry. He died on 3/5/1862 at Munfordville, KY.

Felix Kirk Zollicoffer (1812-1862), one of the first high-ranking deaths of the Civil War, was KIA at Mill Springs (Fishing Creek), KY on January 19th, 1862, when he mistakenly ran into a column of Union forces. A powerful Tennessee politician who was slightly less than successful as a soldier.