ARCHIVE REGARDING COLONEL JOHN S. CROCKER OF THE "MORGAN’S RIFLES," INCLUDING LETTERS OF CAPTURE, EXCHANGE, AND CAMPAIGN

4 autograph letters signed by Colonel John Simpson Crocker (1825–1890), 93rd New York State Volunteers, to his wife Harriet "Hattie" Sipperley Crocker. Various places, February–December 1862. Approx. 22 pages, 8vo, on "Morgan Rifles" letterhead. Two with envelopes, one bearing Washington, D.C. cancel and red three-cent stamp.

John Crocker was one of thirteen children born to Francis W. (1790–1861) and Anna Woodworth Crocker (1795–1874) in Cambridge, Washington County, New York. He married Harriett Sipperley in 1856 and worked as a lawyer in White Creek. In October of 1861, Crocker volunteered his services to the Union Army and was commissioned Colonel of the 93rd New York State Volunteers, the "Morgan's Rifles." His first letter, written on February 23, 1862 from Camp Bliss at Riker’s Island, New York describes the regiment’s drills and preparations for dispatch to the battlefront in Virginia. Just two months later, Crocker was taken prisoner before Yorktown on April 23, 1862 and confined at Libby Prison. The second letter in this collection was written on August 31, 1862 just after he was exchanged as a POW but before he rejoined his regiment. He advises his wife of his arrival in New York and the warm welcome he received: "I certainly have reason to feel proud of the kindly greeting I received in New York and Brooklyn from those whom I met there among the gentlemen of the first character and position...on my arrival here, I found they had sent on with my baggage a case of claret wine which cost thirty-six dollars. I think much of the present."

His exchange, for Colonel Lorman Chancellor, 132nd Virginia Military, afforded him just enough time to rejoin his regiment for provost duty, first at Antietam and then at Fredericksburg a few months later. The final two letters in this group were written in November and December of 1862, on the grim march to Fredericksburg and then just before the conflict began, as the Army of the Potomac prepared to lay down pontoon bridges. On November 16, 1862, from a camp near Weaverville, Virginia, which Crocker describes as "one of the most shabby, rickety places that we have yet passed.” He continues to describe the effects of prolonged conflict on the Virginia landscape, resources, and the soldiers’ morale: “The country through which we marched today bears unmistakeable evidence that troops have been along this way before...devastation and destruction is the unerring work...we are not provided with forage for our horses and mules...[who] had nothing to eat yesterday and today until we arrived here, so completely has the country been drained.” After some “sharp fighting” near Crocker’s campsite, he notes that “our poor Union soldiers lad dead by the roadside.” Further, they soldiers were “not provided with forage for [their] horses and mules and consequently have to take it from the farmers…so completely has the country been drained.” While Crocker is quick to pass judgment on some Southern civilians, particularly the residents of Falmouth, he is not without empathy for the farmers from whom he and his men are obliged to take provisions, writing that they must “take from the people what we needed & that has generally been all they had. What these miserable people subsist on this winter, I know not. They are suffering now from want & yet they adhere tenaciously to secession.”

Finally, on December 1, 1862, from Belle Plains, Crocker tells Hattie that tonight, he and his men will start to build the six pontoon bridges that would eventually span the Rappahannock. He notes that “a movement of the army will commence tomorrow.” In spite of the impending conflict, Crocker appears to be in better spirits and writes descriptively, if somewhat ominously, about life at camp: “This is a glorious night. The moon as she dances along the sky smiles upon us like a blushing bride. You never witnessed a more beautiful evening...than we have on the banks of the Rappahannock tonight. The two armies that are encamped in full view of each other are as quiet as sleeping virgins—scarcely a sound breaks upon the air...But does this lull, this deep silence, this seeming absence of all animated nature betoken a coming storm? Methinks it does and that soon—very soon—will be heard the thunderings and distant roar and wail of that storm which will be heard throughout our land & astonish even the Nations beyond the waters.”

Crocker and his fellow Morgan's Rifles weathered the storm of Fredericksburg, but greater challenges lay in store during the Wilderness Campaign: heavily engaged in near constant action, they participated in Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Deep Bottom, and the Appomattox campaign. Crocker was brevetted Brigadier General on March 13, 1865 and, after the war, took up residence in Washington, D.C.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]