Lyon, Nathaniel:

$2,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM FUTURE UNION GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON, DESCRIBING HIS REDEPLOYMENT TO THE ROGUE RIVER REGION IN RESPONSE TO UNREST ON THE ... A brief but warm autograph letter by Nathaniel Lyon, a controversial figure most remembered as the first Union general to be killed during the Civil War, written during his posting on the California frontier in the early 1850s. Lyon (1818-61) was a Connecticut native and a graduate of West Point. He fought in the Seminole Wars and with most distinction in the Mexican-American War, during which he was promoted to Captain. After the war he was posted to the frontier, where his violent temper and reputation for harsh punishment extended beyond his subordinates, most notably in the case of the Bloody Island Massacre of 1850, where Lyon's unit killed more than 200 Pomo tribe civilians in retaliation for a violent robbery. In 1854 he was dispatched to Kansas where he viewed the violent internecine conflict over the slavery question first-hand. A Free-Soil man (if not an abolitionist), his experiences there solidified his hatred of the pro-slavery faction. In May of 1861 he was made a Brigadier General of volunteers while stationed in Missouri, and organized pre-emptive attacks against Confederate sympathizers in the nominally neutral state. His campaign culminated in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, where he was killed in battle and inflamed the public spirit as a martyr to the Union cause.In this letter, Lyon writes to a George Wo

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