7th Cavalry Archive, ca. 1876
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GUEST:
Well, it was passed down through my family. It came from my great-grandfather, letters that were written to him from his friend George Brown. They went to school together in Baltimore, Maryland, before George joined the Army.
APPRAISER:
So explain to me who this gentleman is in this photograph.
GUEST:
Okay, that is George Brown, he was with the 7th Cavalry, and he was killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
APPRAISER:
This is an archive of a Corporal George Brown, who served in the 7th Cavalry with Custer and died at the battlefield on June 25, 1876, and correspondence after the fact from a friend of his, Private Kim, who served with him, to your great-grandfather.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
The Battle of Little Bighorn is a pivotal moment in American history.
GUEST:
Yes, it is.
APPRAISER:
And so anything that sort of survives from the 7th Cavalry and that event is pretty special-- and what is this here?
GUEST:
That's a map of what the battlefield looked like after the battle was over. It was made by John Kim. He was with the Major Reno group.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm, and what we have here is, this is actually George Brown's appointment as a corporal in the 7th Cavalry.
GUEST:
Yes, it is, yeah.
APPRAISER:
That's pretty impressive. And this is George Brown's documentation of his trips in the Black Hills with Custer.
GUEST:
Yes, it is.
APPRAISER:
Do you know this letter over here?
GUEST:
That was from Kim, telling about finding George's body and being with Custer and E Company.
APPRAISER:
The letter is dated July 20, 1876. It was after the battle, right. And as you probably know, the battle was on June 25.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So here you have notes of his travels with Custer up until the battle, then he died at the battle, and then his friend continued his correspondence.
GUEST:
Yes, that's correct, uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, it's really wonderful. And I mean, I haven't had time to look through all these letters, but they're really special.
GUEST:
I believe it's a total of 23 letters, all told.
APPRAISER:
Do you have any idea of what this material is worth?
GUEST:
I had someone tell me that it might be worth $10,000.
APPRAISER:
I would think that $10,000 is a fairly conservative value, and I think that in the right environment, in the right circumstances, the whole archive could be worth around $25,000 or more.
GUEST:
That's very good.
APPRAISER:
That's a very special gift that your mother left you.
GUEST:
Yes, it is.
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