Description:

(UNION NAVY) USS MONTAUK SURGEON CONDEMNS ‘THAT OLD ASS' DAHLGREN: ‘I HOPE HIS DAYS MAY BE VERY SHORT ON EARTH'
A very interesting war-date letter, 4pp. 8vo., Charleston, Dec. 9, 1864, sadly unsigned but written by U.S. Navy surgeon GEORGE BRAINARD TODD (1834-1874) on his personal stationery. Todd, then serving as surgeon aboard the monitor USS MONTAUK, writes to his mother in the midst of a storm and shares fascinating personal details regarding his ship's current duties and his bitter antipathy to naval ordnance innovator and commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral JOHN A. DAHLGREN (1809-1870), who took the Montauk as his flagship. In part: ‘We are now in the midst of a most fearful storm, but as yet we have felt it very little, as our heavy vessel doesn't toss as the wooden ones… It has been from the North East, and so severe the no exchange of prisoners has been made today, though that is the principle business here now, and may be for some time to come. I don't just fancy this sort of thing, as I firmly believe it to be a ruse of the rebels to gain time and prevent an attack on this place, while Savannah is threatened – or allow them to send all hands to oppose Genl [William T.] Sherman as there is no firing here. We have no news from Pocotaglio today, and none from any where… One of my old friends at Stono a Col. [Alfred S.] Hartwell has been wounded [at the Battle of Honey Hill, Nov. 30, 1864, while leading three regiments of U.S. Colored Troops, including the famous 54th Massachusetts] and a rumour says dead. Our loss on the first day is estimated at 1000 and nothing gained. Why! Because that old ass Dahlgren was in command. I hope his days may be very short on earth, as I too have suffered all one can suffer on earth, from his accursed selfishness in not allowing me to assuage at least the last hours of that loved wife. May God judge him rigidly. Please mother don't complain that I have no right to think of him as I do, as I deem him my wife's murderer and if ever I can will give him part payment…' Todd picks up his writing again the following day, Dec. 10: ‘We had but little conception of the gale, we were so far up in the harbor, but when we came down from picket this morning, we saw its effects. Hardly a vessel in the lower harbor has escaped injury and one has gone to pieces not leaving even a vestige of the wreck to tell her fate. It was a schooner placed at the entrance to the lower harbor as a ‘lightship'. All hands must have been lost, as not even a boat or any spar has been found, and she could not be seen for the darkness of the night and storm. Poor fellows. The sea must sing their dirge and be their winding sheet and the worse to the lost, in each of over 30 ships…' Shows original mailing folds and minor foxing throughout, otherwise in very good to fine condition overall. Dr. George Brainard Todd would go on to leave his mark on history in an unexpected way – he would be present at Ford's Theater and witness the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, and he would, with two other doctors, conduct Booth's autopsy aboard the Montauk, where the body was taken following his death at the hands of Boston Corbett.

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November 14, 2025 10:00 AM EST
Elkton, MD, US

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