BOWLING GREEN / KY. // FEB partial strike cds on cover with manuscript Paid 10 BOWLING GREEN / KY. // JAN / 21 cds on cover to Mrs. Mattie Slemons, Monticello, Ark[ansa]s; edge tears. Photocopy of original letter (no longer present) headed Camp Defiance Ky, Jany 30th 1862. No soldier’s endorsement but the cover was sent by Col W. F. Slemons of the 2nd Arkansas Cavalry to his wife as shown by the long and quite interesting 3-page letter which mentions Crittendon and death of gallant Zollicoffer. $500.

Col. W. F. Slemons, born in Tennessee in 1830, was a 31-year-old Monticello, Arkansas lawyer when he enlisted in July 1861. The Slemons correspondence, now housed at The Museum of the Confederacy, were sent primarily to his wife Mattie. They reveal an educated man possessed of unusual powers of observation and a dry wit. For nearly two years, Slemons served with Brigadier Gen. James R. Chalmers cavalry division in northern Mississippi and Tennessee. In the summer of 1864, in command of the brigade, Col. Slemons joined Gen. Sterling Price’s invasion of Missouri. Captured in October 1864, Slemons spent the winter of 1864 and spring of 1865 in prison camps at Johnsons Island, Ohio, and Rock Island, Illinois. Once back in Arkansas, Slemons renewed his law practice, and served as a justice of the peace, judge, and three-term congressman. He died in Monticello, Arkansas in 1918. A wartime ambrotype of Col. Slemons in uniform, and a postwar ambrotype of an older Slemons in civilian clothes are both in the museum collection.

COLUMBUS / KY // DEC / 8 [1861] cds with matching handstamped PAID 5 (rate in ms) to Miss Letitia S. Austin, Box 13 Post Office Memphis, Tennessee on neat green envelope, very slightly educed at left, Very Fine, Ex Wyche. Scarce and desirable Kentucky use.  $800.