Oh! Slavery what a curse thou art to our Nation.

Autograph letter signed by Edmund K. Brown, Co. D, 6th New Hampshire Infantry, to his son, Schuyler L. S. Brown. Camp Reno, [North Carolina], 17 September 1864. 4 pages, 8vo, on blue paper. 

Private Edmund K. Brown writes home to his 13-year-old son, Schuyler (1850-1905), with an empathetic description of formerly enslaved people arriving in Washington, D.C.: "Yesterday while stopping in the City of Washinton I saw Eight Loads of Contrabands right from Rebeldom + let me tell you that they was the hardest lot of people that i ever saw. There was young + old, so poor in Health, + then so [ragged]. Oh! Slavery what a curse thou art to our Nation. But thank god the time is soon coming when it will be among the evils that was in our fair land." 

Edmund K. Brown (1826-1865) of Ossipee, New Hampshire, was 35 years old when he enlisted on 16 December 1863 into Company D of the 6th New Hampshire Infantry. He joined during a hard fought period of the regiment, where they engaged at the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and the Siege of Petersburg. In the spring of 1865, they joined the Appomattaox Campaign and occupied Petersburg. 

This letter begins, "My health is very poor at the present time," and it seems his ill health would follow him throughout his enlistment. Tragically, Brown would succumb to disease in July 1865 in Washington D.C. after the Grand Review and just a week before the 6th New Hampshire was mustered out.

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