Lot 506: Civil War Canteen and Letters, Thomas Tabb Jr. CSA

Civil War era canteen belonging to Private Thomas Tabb Jr., CSA, 14th Mississippi (1840-1861), and 3 related letters. Tabb was a native of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, the son of Rev. Thomas Tabb and Mary Jones Tabb. He enlisted in a regiment co-organized by his older and only brother, William Henry Tabb (who would go on to become Captain of Company G, Agency Rifles, and was killed in 1864). The 14th spent the late summer and Fall of 1861 in East Tennessee, before moving into South Central Kentucky. Thomas Tabb’s death occurred just before his entire unit was captured at the Battle of Fort Donelson and possibly had to do with the buildup in the Bowling Green, Kentucky area of troops commanded by Gens. Buckner and Johnson, CSA, and Gen. William T. Sherman, USA. This period involved CSA cavalry raids, infantry marches and skirmishes designed to convince the Union Generals that the Confederate forces were larger than they actually were.

This lot includes 1 canvas covered tin canteen lacking lid, with stitched lettering “T.A. Tabb”. 6 in diameter. Also included is a letter from Thomas A. Tabb dated Rousselville (sic) Tennessee, Aug. 20, 1861, “to the family,” stating “As Lieut. Crigler is going to Corinth this morning on business for the regiment I will write you a few lines to let you know I am getting on finely here… we are up here in the mountains .. I do not know where we will go from here.. ”

Note: while Thomas’s brother, Capt. William H. Tabb, was a prolific letter writer to his family both before and during the war, we have found no other wartime letters from Thomas Tabb to his family. The only documentation referencing Tabb’s death is a fragment of a letter, included in this lot, giving a detailed account of Thomas’s death, presumably to “Willie” Tabb: “[He] asked Pa and Sis to take hold of his hand and go home with him, he prayed…. he drank water a few moments before his death and said thank you sis.” A note at the bottom of the letter indicates he died Oct. 3, 1861, and these were his last words.

Also included is a letter to Tabb’s parents from L.A. Davis, dated Ash Wood Nov. 7, 1861, offering condolences on “your soul crushing affliction” and noting that his/her own son William ” returned on the same train with yours and with the same object in him” but is rapidly improving. (Note: an archive of letters between Thomas’s brother William Tabb and his parents, from the 1850s to his death, is also being sold in this auction, along with other archives related to the Tabb family).

PROVENANCE: The Estates of Thomas Maxfield and Sara McIntyre Bahner, by descent in the family of Mollie Tabb Moore, sister of Thomas Tabb, Jr.

CONDITION: Canteen covering is extremely worn, particularly to one side; metal dented, lacking lid.  Letters: light toning and creasing, small tears to Tabb’s letter at top.