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Lieutenant Edward Stanley Abbot 17th U.S, Infantry KIA Gettysburg

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$1,700

Item No. CV17900 Category

Description

Rare carte view of Edward Stanley Abbot of the 17th U.S. Infantry.  Referred to as Stanley by his friends, Edward would enter Harvard College in July, 1860. In September, 1861, he was absent from College for a short time on account of his health, and soon after his recovery began to devote his whole time to military study, with the idea of becoming an officer in the Regular service. He would leave college in March, 1862, and went to the Military School at Norwich, Vermont, where he stayed about four months. On July 1, 1862, Edward enlisted at Fort Preble, Portland, in the Seventeenth Infantry, United States Army, having previously declined to accept a commission in the Volunteer service, because he chose to take what he deemed the shortest road to a commission in the Regular service. The absence of his brother, now Brevet Major-General Henry L. Abbot, then an engineer officer on General McClellan’s staff in the Peninsula, had occasioned some delay in obtaining the commission he wished for. He therefore took this manly way to earn one for himself, under a promise from Lieutenant-Colonel J. Durrell Greene, of the Seventeenth Infantry, that, if he showed himself fit for a commission, he should be recommended to the War Department to receive one. On the 11th of November, 1862, he received the commission of Second Lieutenant, and, at his own request, was at once assigned to duty with a company of the battalion then in the field with the Army of the Potomac. Early in December, 1862, he left his home for the last time, taking on a party of recruits, about fifty in number. Though the only officer with the party, and himself so young, he carried the entire number through Boston, New York, and Washington without the loss of a single man. For this service, an unusual one, he received much commendation at the time from his superiors. He became First Lieutenant on April 27, 1863. Absent from duty only three days, which he spent in the defenses of Washington on a visit to his brother, General Abbot, whom he had not seen for two years. He rejoined his company in the Chancellorsville campaign, having walked twenty miles in one night to overtake them before the battle, in which his regiment took gallant part, and lost one man in every ten. He would march with the regiment to Gettysburg, reached the battle-ground on Thursday morning at dawn, and was stationed on Little Round Top, near the extreme left of the line. The attack of the Rebels began about four in the afternoon. Early in the fight, while leading his men in a charge down a hill across a marsh and wall and up a little slope, Stanley was struck in the right breast by a minie-ball. The shoulder-strap on the light blouse he wore had worked forward, and the ball, just stripping off some of its gold-lace, passed through the right lung and lodged near the spine. He fell senseless to the ground, and for some hours was unconscious. He was at once borne to the rear, though not expected to survive long. He afterwards rallied, however, and lived until about noon of July the 8th, when he died in the field hospital of the Second Division of the Fifth Army Corps. His regiment lost fearfully in this battle, fourteen out of the nineteen officers who were there present being wounded. There is a considerable amount of information online regarding Edwards life and death as well as several different carte views known of him. This one is signed on the reverse in his hand “E. Stanley Abbot”. The additional pencil inscription was written at a later date. No back mark on this one. Incredibly rare view.

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