"You need not make much calculations on ever seeing my face at those Sunday dinners again," writes Isaac Plumb in a June 1862 letter contained within a fascinating archive of his US civil war items.
The June 1862 letter to a friend is one of the standout pieces of the archive of his wartime artefacts going under than hammer in New York tomorrow (October 2).
 Plumb predicted his own fate |
Plumb, a captain of the US 61st New York Infantry, also recounts stories from the battle of Antietam, among American history's most bloody, as well as 1863's Gettysburg, where his life was saved from a musket shot by two keys and a silver pencil in his pocket.
Those items are not in the auction, yet three of his swords, his cardboard wallet and photographs are, alongside 185 letters.
"If we had remained in the fight a short time longer there would have been none of us left," he wrote of Gettysburg, where 65 of his regiment's 100 men were killed.
The items, bequeathed to the consigner by Plumb's niece, are expected to make up to $15,000 when the sell in a single lot.
While Plumb survived many of the war's most horrific battles, his pessimistic words were eventually proved correct, when he succumbed in July 1864 to wounds received a month earlier at Cold Harbor.
A first edition of the Constitution of the State of New-York, printed in 1777, will also feature at the auction.
It is the first such example to appear at auction since 1944, and has a high estimate of $15,000.
Take a look at our stunning range of militaria, which comprises pieces spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.
