Patriotic Letterhead/Cover Pvt Albert E Loveland 71st Pa Vols, KIA Antietam

  

Four pages in ink on an Elmer Ellsworth Patriotic lettersheet, with original important Patriotic Cover showing Contraband running away from the Slaveholders from Private Albert Eugene Loveland of the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry commanded by Senator/Colonel Edward Baker. Full transcription above in August of 1861. Loveland would be killed at Antietam on 9/19/62.

He does not show up in the database, but that is not unusual for Pa Soldiers. He does show up in records of the Antietam Battlefield on line. Rare Cover is addressed to his parents in Ct, where he was born.

Wonderful vignette of African Americans running away from the Slave Owners! Cover unused exists in the Library of Congress collection. This is a used version by a Union Soldier and is very rare!

Print shows a slave at the Union fort taunting his plantation master. The planter (left) waves his whip and cries, Come back you black rascal. " The slave replies, "Can't come back nohow massa Dis chile's contraban.

Other slaves are seen leaving the fields and heading toward the fort. On May 27, 1861, Benjamin Butler, commander of the Union army in Virginia and North Carolina, decreed that slaves who fled to Union lines were legitimate "contraband of war, " and were not subject to return to their Confederate owners. The declaration precipitated scores of escapes to Union lines around Fortress Monroe, Butler's headquarters in Virginia.

From the famous Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs. Federal Private Albert Eugene Loveland (1843 - 1862). Before Antietam He mustered into service in Company H, 71st Pennsylvania Infantry on 28 June 1861. He was killed in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

Personal details from family genealogists, notably John Bigelow Loveland's Genealogy of the Loveland Family in the United States of America Vol. 3, 1895; with his death on 19 September.