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LaGrange, Isaac.

[Lot of nine autograph letters, signed, on Civil War subjects and Kansas during the Indian Wars.]

New Orleans and Bonnet Carre, Louisiana; Albany, New York; Fort Larned and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 14 Nov. 1864 to 14 April 1869. 9.75” x 7.75” to 7.75” x 5”. 26 pp. in ink on white paper. 2 original envelopes addressed to Christine A. LaGrange in Wisconsin and Tennessee. CONDITION: Very good, old folds, a few light stains, no losses to the text.

A group of letters touching on Civil War matters and the post-Civil War frontier fort scene by a young musician who served as a Zouave in the Union army for nearly four years before turning eighteen in 1865 (during the war) and serving in Kansas during the Indian Wars.

Born in Albany, New York, Isaac LaGrange (ca. 1847–1915) was only fifteen or sixteen years old when he enlisted in Albany in 1861. A member of the Albany Zouave Cadets and other Zouave units during the war, he served as Drum Major in Ellsworth’s Avengers (Zouaves), 44th New York Infantry in 1862, participating in the Battle of Antietam. James Manning’s Albany Zouave Cadets relates that, until August 1862, he was a “prominent member of the celebrated Pettingill’s Drum Corps, which, on many a festive occasion, made splendid martial music for the marching soldiers.” In June 1863, LaGrange joined the 18th New York Cavalry as a private in Co. A., which took part in the suppression of the 1863 New York City draft riots. In 1864, he participated in the Red River campaign and a range of other conflicts in the Gulf Coast Theatre. The wartime letters included here find him in Albany during a furlough, and in New Orleans and Bonnet Carre in Louisiana. A photo of him in uniform with a bugle and drum can be seen in Daniel J. Miller’s American Zouaves, 1859-1959: An Illustrated History. He identifies himself as a “musician” in his various signatures here.

In April 1867 LaGrange enlisted in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regular Army, Co. K, amidst the Indian Wars of the late 1860s, and was stationed in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth and then Fort Larned in Kansas. Upon his discharge in 1870, he was appointed Sergeant with the Albany Police Department, for which he worked until at least 1910. He later married Marcella Hackett LaGrange (1849–1917), with whom he had three children. LaGrange died in Albany in 1915. 

LaGrange writes these letters to his cousin Miss Christine A. LaGrange (sometimes addressed here as “sis”), who is variously located in Albany, New York, Dickson County, Tennessee, and Brothertown, Wisconsin. The earliest letter, dated November 10th 1864, includes much political content, and discusses the 1864 presidential contest between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan. The next letter, composed in February 1865, finds LaGrange in the St. Louis General Hospital in New Orleans with chills and fever. He mentions that he believes another Union expedition is being planned for the Red River region. The next two letters, from March and April 1865, are written from Bonnet Carre, Louisiana. The latter letter mentions “Old Abe” (Lincoln) as well as Gen. Sherman and Gen. Sheridan, and LaGrange states his belief that the war will be over soon. In the letter written on April 14th 1865—the day he turns eighteen—he discusses the surrender of Lee’s “demoralized” army to Gen. Grant, and he expresses feelings of respect for Lincoln. The remaining four letters, written between 1867 and 1869, are all written from Kansas: one from Fort Leavenworth and three from the remote frontier outpost Fort Larned. 

SOME REPRESENTATIVE PASSAGES

Albany, New York; 10 Nov. 1864 “Since receiving your letter I received a furlough and came home and will return on the 25[th] of this month…McClellan…only carried one state and that is a secession state. We have a senior governor and president and majority of Congress. Tell Uncle Abe I feel sorry for him if he voted for little man [viz., McClellan] for he threw his vote away. This war is not a going to last long now it could be long before we shall be mustered out of service…But if McClelland had been elected we would had to lay down our arms to the rebs old Abe don’t see compromising with them…The only way to put down this rebellion is to fight it out and then we shall have them under our thumb but compromise with them and they will have us under their thumb. But they never care to think as long as Lincoln is president. In this city little Mac [McClelland] had a majority of 2700 but in the state Lincoln had a large majority. We have got a decent Governor now…that is a soldier’s friend. When in Congress he is [sic] the man that introduced the bill to raise the soldiers pay to sixteen dollars per month and increase the rations and clothing. Such a man we want to have [as] Governor of the State of New York.”

St. Louis Gen. Hospital, New Orleans; 3 Feb. 1865 “I have been sick again with the chills and fever but I am getting along first rate again and will rejoin my regiment in a few days…Since I wrote you last our regiment has moved on the Mississippi at a place called Kennerville about 20 miles from the city of New Orleans. They are fixing for another expedition for the Red River again I suppose.”

Bonnet Carré, Louisiana; 17 March 1865 “I have not been to a party in a great while excepting nigger scrapes down here but I compare them with the parties we have north but we manage to have some fun and plenty of dancing but I never dance myself and never fancied such a thing all I go to parties down here for is to get a good belly full of good vittles and that is something we don’t manage to get in camp very often…What does Uncle Abe think about the war now tell him I think this thing cannot last long now [William Tecumseh] Sherman & [Philip] Sheridan are showing themselves now.”

Fort Bonnet Carré, Louisiana; 14 April 1865 “This day I am eighteen years of age. The young ladies down here tell me I am a very young soldier don’t you think so. I should call myself an old soldier. I have been pretty near four years in service now…I am also feeling very good to hear of the news of Richmond & Mobile being taken and today the news came that Gen. Lee’s Army was completely demoralized and was expecting them to surrender to Gen. Grant. That is pretty good news. We have an idea of being mustered out of service in the fall. You see we have a great many of one-year men in our regiment to be mustered out in the month of Aug. & Sept…We are not mounted only with enfield rifles and sabers too dull…This great news does not stop us from drilling…We don’t get enough to fill up the bread basket…Ask Uncle Abe if he is so much opposed to Lincoln as he was before this news came. Tell him I think old Abe is a pretty good man and bound to end this war if it is a possible thing and I think he is doing his best…Send me one of those sesesh papers of yours from Wisconsin…I can say no more at present. I hear the bugler blowing drill call.”

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; [ca. 1868] “I am in the U.S. Army and stationed at this fort which is called an Indian country. But it [is] not very much so this part of the country but farther west about two hundred miles [where] there are plenty of them hostile…It is a long time since I heard from home, they don’t appear to answer my letters very punctual, but I will excuse them they being in citizen life and I a soldier, I have twice the time they do…This fort is situated in the back of the Missouri River three miles from the beautiful city of Leavenworth, Kansas…I hope you are not angry at me for not keeping up the correspondence between us after being mustered out of volunteer service but I really did neglect a great many of my former correspondents in the same way as I did you.”

Fort Larned, Kansas; 14 April 1868 “This state I think beats any state I have ever been in yet…it is one of the healthiest states in [the] Union…The Indians could not make an attack on this post unexpectedly, to us, because come from any point they would be seen for miles away. We can see trains coming in from the east [at] the distance of seven miles with the naked eye.”

Fort Larned; 16 Sept. 1868 “Very sorry to hear you are going along with your father to Tennessee for it is a beautiful country and a good ‘Democrat’ can make money there and I think that is A[bram]. V. LaGrange. I hope he may do well and when I return I may go through Tennessee and if he don’t settle too far from the railroad…Tennessee is the place to catch a nice fellow and a young lady like you, both pretty and intelligent, would win the heart of some handsome and wealthy young planter of the south…I have traveled through all of [the southern states] and the ladies all chew tobacco or snuff.”

“I am situated now in the plains where no human being can be seen but for soldiers and Indians. They, the Indians, come in here pretty near every day after rations, they [are] not hostile. Comanche, Kiowa & Kaws. But the Cheyenne, Arapahoes, Apache and Sioux are on the war path and a large army are [sic] after them commanded by the hero Phil Sheridan. We are expecting great news from them every day. This post is a pretty large one. The buildings are built of stone but it is situated far out from any other habitation. 9 miles from the Arkansas River. It is impossible to see a tree. It appears such things don’t grow in this region. We left Leavenworth [Kansas] on the 1st Sept. and have been on the road until the 13th when we arrived at this post. Rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, wolf, and buffalo are too numerous to mention in this letter.”

Fort Larned; 5 Jan. 1869 “I was not very near to Nashville at the time of the rebellion…I am enduring the hardships of a soldier and you the weary one of a seamstress Athena…I have sworn this shall be my last trip in the U.S. Army…I suppose you heard of the great Indian battle fought by Genl. Custer and the 7th Calvary some two or three weeks ago.”

A unique portrait of a Zouave musician’s experiences in both the Civil War and the succeeding Indian War.

REFERENCES: Manning, James Hilton. Albany Zouave Cadets (Albany, New York, 1910), pp. 48–49; Miller, Daniel J. American Zouaves, 1859-1959: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2020), p. 207; “Isaac LaGrange” at Fold3 online; “Isaac LaGrange” at Find A Grave online.

Item #8660

Price: $1,250.00

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