Lt. Joseph Bennett Plummer (1816-1862; West Point Class of 1841) was a 1st Lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Infantry and served as quartermaster on the Texas frontier. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he advanced to the rank of Brigadier General in the Army of the Mississippi, and died of complications from a combat wound on August 9, 1862.
This manuscript copy letter book contains approximately 300 letters (circa 340 pages) written from Fort Brown (current day Brownsville) July 14, 1849, to February 24, 1850, and Fort Duncan (near Eagle Pass) March 18, 1850, to August 17,1851. As a regimental quartermaster, Plummer was responsible for provisioning all of the newly formed Army posts along the Rio Grande including Fort Duncan, one of the most exposed and remote forts on the Texas frontier. The ledger book consists of daily letters written to various quartermasters at posts along the Rio Grande, reports to superiors in San Antonio and Washington, D.C., as well as correspondence with private individuals with whom the forts conducted business. The collection documents the constant problems and frustrations encountered in establishing these frontier outposts. Plummer's letter of July 29, 1850, reports the Harry Love Expedition up the Rio Grande River, including two original manuscript map fragments from that expedition.
Open for research.
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Gift/purchase from Michael Vinson,
Gift/purchase,
Accessioned as number 2004-15.
Lt. Joseph Bennett Plummer Manuscript Copy Letter Book, AR450, OS387, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library.
The collection was processed by Tara Kirk in spring 2005.
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