Our Price: sold

Printed broadside, 13.25 x 9.75 in. Very rare Massachusetts recruiting poster, issued pursuant to Lincoln's first call for volunteers following the attack on Fort Sumter, April 1861. Headed Volunteers Attention!, for the Boston British Volunteer Company!!, seeking 50 able bodied men...to fill up the company...apply at the Rooms of the Boston British Drill Club...Revere house, Bowdoin Square Boston. With illustration of the British Royal seal at center. At either side are illustrations of clasped hands (representing Britain and US), with eagle at center holding ribbon in beak, In Union There is Strength. Printed by Davis & Farmer, Boston.

The outfit became Company H of the 17th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Immediately on that first Lincoln call for volunteers, 20 young men formed a military drill club; almost all of them of British background; the drill master had been a sergeant in the British Army and the two officers also had been non-commissioned officers in the British Army in earlier years. Most of the members were of British birth, but eventually they recruited other US citizens, mostly from the Fall River area. The 17th Massachusetts saw action in numerous North Carolina expeditions and campaigns, losing 172 men KIA and by disease.

Provenance: Property of N. Flayderman & Co.

Condition:

Light aging, fragile, but overall very fine condition. Some short tears along perimeter. Light crease along top right corner. Appears that there was separation along lower right corner, but it was reinforced with tape on reverse side.