The 30 Minute Rule begins May 21 at 7:00 PM EDT. An Initial Bid Must Be Placed By May 21 at 6:00 PM EDT To Participate After 6:00 PM EDT
Two ALSs in pencil, both signed "Dr. Edwin Bruce," totaling five pages, 6.25 x 8, August 28, 1862. Both are to Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood of Iowa, describing depredations by marauding Sioux warriors. The first, in part (spelling and grammar retained): "I have the painfull duty to perform to notify that we have just returned from a reconitering of a Desert massacre of our frontier settlers we found things in truly a deplorable condition at the first house we found one man killed and one boy wounded at the second two killed and at the third house one woman and three children at the fourth one man some of the dead were shot through the head some through the heart and lungs and some were shot with buckshot one little boy had his brains dashed out against the end of a log…The like of barberous brutality I never wittnessed before houses were stripped of all there contents and utterly destroyed…we are truly in a destitute condition we are out of arms, and out of amonition if you will send us arms & amonition please notify our citizens of the same…I was captain of the force sent to releive the settlers if we can't get powder lead and caps and arms we must abandon our settlements and being exposed to merciless savages all of the scattering inhabatants here on the frontier."
The second, in part: "I wrote a few lines setting forth the particulars of the massacre that took place on the river above us and would further state that since there has ben one dead body found and intered making in all 10 dead and two wounded and 7 missing…our citizens are defending our place the best they can…a number of men are imployed building a fort to defend out village we hope to have it completed in a fiew weeks the citizens up the river have abandoned all and rushed down here…I am about out of medicines and have no instruments. If you will please send me a case of amputating & surgical instruments and a small asortment of hospitle medicines I will be very thankfull…most of the settlers are brave and undaunted and determined in their persuits and will defend there homes if they can but have the arms and ammunition and doe credit to our noble little State…If you want my cerveses in this part of the state cervis it is at your disposel. I was an oficer in the Mexican War and can fight Indians if it is required for me to doe so." Both docketed on the reverse by the governor's office, "About Indian outrages." In overall fine condition.
These urgent, firsthand appeals—rich in unfiltered detail and emotional immediacy—stand as powerful documentary evidence of the tensions and uncertainties that defined life on the frontier in 1862.
The Western Americana auction of Jochen Zeitz.
