(CIVIL WAR--NEW HAMPSHIRE.) E. Norman Gunnison. Correspondence and poetry of a Bull Run private with a literary bent. 24 items in one folder: 6 Autograph Letters Signed to his sister Augusta Carlton, 3 of them on illustrated patriotic letterhead, two with original envelopes; one additional letter transcript; 5 letters received from Augusta; 7 undated manuscript poems; 4 printed poems in handbill or clipping form; and a manuscript eulogy upon his death; generally minor wear.Various places, 1861-62, 1880 and undatedElisha Norman Gunnison (1837-1880) was raised in Charleston, MA and served as a private in the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry until his disability discharge in January 1863. He was a prolific poet during and after the war. His letters home are more enthusiastic and patriotic than most. In his first undated letter, he thanks "God that he made me able, and gave me the will to fight for this glorious cause"; he describes "scouting through the bushes nights, to pick off Rebel sentries." Not long before Bull Run, he expects to "have a big fight soon . . . expect a glorious fight." On 13 July he announces that "we are to lead the attack on Manesses Gap under Brigader General Burnside; we are impatient for the fight, victory is perching on our banners." Four days after the First Battle of Bull Run, he writes "I have just come out of the hottest battle ever fought on American soil. . . . Our regt was all cut to peices, second in battle, last out." Despite the loss, "got a sword taken from a man I killed." On 31 December 1861 he discusses a poem he had written "entiteled Sic Semper Tyranis, that is Lattin for so allways to tyrants." This was years before John Wilkes Booth made the phrase a lost-cause rallying cry. On 3 May 1862, camped near Yorktown just before the Battle of Williamsburg, he describes the bravado of his regiment while being shelled: "Our boys are standing round makeing observations as coolley as can be. If a shell don't come far enough, they will sing out 'A little more powder, Johney,' and if it goes too far they say 'Shot to far that time, try it again.'" Also included is a manuscript transcript (in a much tidier hand) of Gunnison's 1 June 1862 letter to Mr. W.H. Thomes, editor of the American Union newspaper of Boston, submitting a poem for publication along with his impressions of the Battle of Williamsburg. Gunnison's letters received from his sister are more compelling than most letters from the home front. Her 28 July 1861 letter in the wake of Bull Run is inspirational in its depiction of the Union troops, and urges Lincoln to "do our work by proclaiming liberty to the enslaved . . . who at this present crisis has done all the work of the South, not the whites, they have not the muscle nor the energy." Gunnison's poems include the printed broadsides "To Our Sister in Heaven" and "His Last Poem: As One Whom His Mother Comforteth," neither of which appear in OCLC; a clipping of his poem "The Battle of Bull Run" as published in the Charlestown Advertiser; as well as apparently unpublished manuscript poems. Finally, a manuscript tribute to Gunnison was written in 1880 by a Virginia minister whose home was on the battlefield at the Battle of Malvern Hill; his family had been saved by Gunnison's kindness and heroism.