Items for Sale - Prisoner of War & Civilian Flag of Truce - Section Three - Item#20641
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Item# 20641

JOHNSON’S ISLAND, SANDUSKY, OHIO: US 65, 3¢ rose tied Sandusky Ohio Oct 22 duplex as well as RICHMOND Va. CDS, bold neat prisoner’s examined marking TOC (Pvt. Theodore O. Castle, 128th O.V.I – used August 23-November 3, 1864) on cover to his father, A.C. Mitchell, Glennville Barbour Co(unty) Ala. from J.B. Mitchell 34th Ala Inft. (endorsed across the left end), manuscript “For flag of truce via Old Pt. Comfort” at top and stamped (Richmond) DUE 10 representing use of both sides. Ex Ralph Swap. $600. 

James Billingslea Mitchell (1844 - 1891) was the son of Americus Columbus Mitchell (1819-1891) to whom this letter was addressed. From the Library of Congress exhibit, The Civil War in America, Biographies: "A sixteen-year-old college student when the Civil War began, James Billingslea Mitchell (1844–1891) was the son of a well-to-do Alabama landowner who owned more than 300 slaves. Eloquent, observant, and absolutely determined to do his fair share in the war, he convinced his father to let him transfer from the University of North Carolina (before that state had seceded) in order to enter the University of Alabama, where he received both normal schooling and military training. He was so adept at the latter that he became a drillmaster for Confederate recruits and participated in a military campaign before he was officially allowed to join the army. At age seventeen, he was elected lieutenant in the 34th Alabama Regiment and went on to serve in the Perryville Campaign, the Battle of Murfreesboro or Stones River (where he was wounded in the side and removed the bullet himself), the Battle of Chickamauga (wounded in the neck), and in the 1863 fighting around Chattanooga. Captured at Missionary Ridge, he spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio - an incarceration that he bore with grace, though he found it "exceedingly irksome." After his release in June 1865, Mitchell received his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina, graduated from a Tennessee law school, married, and eventually settled in Seale, Alabama. In addition to practicing law, he was active in state politics and served in the Alabama State Senate and House of Representatives. Just a few days before his death at age forty-six, he was appointed a judge of the Alabama Supreme Court."

Price: $600