Gorsuch, Joseph B. (1834-1908) to William Beckett
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00653.09.12 Author/Creator: Gorsuch, Joseph B. (1834-1908) Place Written: Mississippi Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 4 July 1863 Pagination: 3 p. ; 24.7 x 19.5 cm. Order a Copy
Gorsuch, Captain and Provost Marshal of the 13th Army Corps, writes to his friend the day the Union won the Battle of Vicksburg. Declares "Today is an era in our career as an army, and as individuals, for today Vicksburg has fallen. Long and patiently have we marched, and toiled and fought for this, and it is very fit that on Freedom's Day, Freedom's flag should wave from the parapets of Slavery's boasted redoubt." Mentions his pride of the soldiers he led from Butler County, Ohio as Captain of the 83rd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Discusses the hardships soldiers had to endure, including surviving and fighting for three days while subsisting on one cracker. States "I speak from absolute conviction and not from any mere idle theorizing, when I say that Slavery is intensely and irresistibly brutalizing to all connected with it." Predicts that after dispersing the Army of General Joseph Johnston, the Union will attempt to attack the army of General Braxton Bragg. Writes from the Department of the Provost Marshal, Headquarters of Major General Edward Otho Cresap Ord near or in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Beckett was possibly the 1848 founder of the Beckett Paper Company of Hamilton, Ohio.
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