Civil War collector reunites soldier’s letter and envelope

LEWISTON – A collector of Civil War memorabilia has bought an 1861 letter written by a fife player in the Union’s 1st Maine Regiment and the envelope in which it was mailed in separate transactions.

Glenn Gagne, a lifelong Civil War buff who has been collecting war keepsakes for nearly a decade, found the letter and the envelope being auctioned by two sellers in two states on the eBay Internet auction site.

Gagne paid $1,000 for both the letter and the envelope, which came with a photo of the letter’s author, Cyrus Freeman, who may have been the region’s first volunteer to enlist in America’s bloodiest war.

Even at that price, Gagne feels fortunate to have tracked down the items and reunited them after so many years.

“I felt like I’d won the Megabucks,” said Gagne.

Freeman joined the 1st Maine Infantry, the first Maine group to go to war, on May 3, 1861. Gagne’s photo of him has a stamp on the back that says, “Curtis & Crosby, Lisbon Street, Lewiston, Maine.”

The size of a baseball card, the photo was printed on cardboard and has been preserved in a plastic case. The image shows a young man in an embroidered dress uniform, clean-shaven and standing erect, a sword on his right hip.

The envelope is addressed to Freeman’s family home on Pine Street.

In the letter, Freeman writes about his charmed army life as part of the field and staff of the regiment, which was protecting the White House in the war’s early days. Freeman wrote that the sum of his duties was to play his fife at reveille, at meals and at sunset. The rest of the time, Freeman ate and napped.

“I have a very laborious time,” he wrote, joking about the lazy play, eat and sleep routine among the officers.

But he also complained that he had seen nothing of battles.

“We are going farther and farther from the enemy,” Freeman wrote.

Gagne, 52, started collecting Civil War memorabilia about Maine, but there was too much so he narrowed his focus to just Lewiston.

His hobby isn’t cheap. After working at Falcon Shoe Manufacturing in the morning to pay the bills, he works in the produce section of a Hannaford grocery story in the afternoon to fund his hobby.

Gagne said he likes how his collectibles provide hints of life in Lewiston 140 years ago.

Freeman’s letter, for instance, talks of family, an indulgent doctor who spoiled his horse, and of the mundane.

“Keep the garden weeded and the front door steps clean,” Freeman wrote.