Description:

Byers Samuel 1838 - 1933 Lovely S.H.M. Byers twice signed pair, includes his Civil War poem 'Sherman's March To The Sea"

Single page ALS, 7.25" x 10.75", on personal letterhead of "S.H.M. Byers / 3044 West Seventh Street / Los Angeles, Cal". Dated "21 Feb 1924" and signed by Byers as "S.H.W. Byers". Expected folds, staple marks to upper left corner. Else near fine. Accompanied by a two sided pamphlet which includes the full poem, "Sherman's March To The Sea", with the additional story of the Famous War Song, with lovely signed inscription of "Compliments of S.H.W. Byers". Near fine


Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers was born in Pennsylvania in 1838 and moved to Burlington, Iowa in 1851. Byers had studied law before enlisting as a First Corporal in Company B of the Fifth Iowa Infantry in 1861. By July 1862 he was promoted to Quartermaster Sergeant, he became the regimental adjutant in April 1863, and later that year he was taken prisoner at the Battle of Chattanooga with eighty other members of his regiment. Byers spent the next sixteen months in five different Confederate prison camps. While confined in a Confederate prison in Columbia, South Carolina in December 1864, Byers heard of General William T. Sherman's bold march through Georgia. This inspired Byers and he wrote the poem, "Sherman's March to the Sea," which was a tribute to the Union general. The poem was soon set to music and by the end of the war the song had been published by several different publishers, was set to a variety of different tunes, and became quite popular throughout the northern states. Byers escaped from prison and joined Sherman's troops as they entered Columbia, South Carolina. He attached himself to the 10th Iowa Infantry, since his original regiment mustered out of service in July 1864. However, General Sherman soon invited Byers to join his staff and this is where Byers served until the end of the war. Following the war, Byers was commissioned as a Brevet Major, served as the United States Consul to Switzerland, and wrote articles and books on his experiences in the Civil War. Byers died in 1933 at the age of ninety five.

This lovely ALS penned to John McElroy, Esq, Editor of National Tribune in Washington D.C noted some of the history behind his famous song "I was on Sherman's staff in the Carolinas, and was sent down the Cape Fear River by him to carry the news of his victories to grant before Petersburg, and to the government at Washington:

The song's important claim to history is that it gave its name to the most romantic campaign of the Civil War-"

During the Civil War, a massive network of defenses at Fort Fisher protected the Cape Fear River, which was an important route for blockade-runners transporting military provisions to inland troops. Located at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, Fort Fisher is approximately 19 miles south of Downtown Wilmington, NC. Due to the strength of the protection at Fort Fisher, Wilmington was the last Atlantic Coast port of the Confederacy to remain open to trade. Fort Fisher fell to Federal troops during the largest naval bombardment of the 19th century on January 15, 1865 and the city soon filled with troops in occupation. Before its fall, Fort Fisher (the South's largest earthen fort) protected blockade-runners en route to Wilmington. The Second Battle was the largest land-sea battle of the Civil War.

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