[ 'Sergeant Bates', American Civil War (Union) soldier who walked across the American South and then England with the Union flag. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Gilbert H Bates | (Sergeant Bates') to Edward Draper, apologising for missing a visit.

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, aged and creased, with traces of a grey paper mount on the reverse of the second leaf, which also has a closed tear unobtrusively repaired with archival tape. Addressing his letter to 'Mr Edwin [sic] Draper | Vincent Square | Westminster' he apologises profusely for missing an appointment: 'Before leaving the theatre Saturday evening last, I made a memorandum of the hour appointed to call at your residence to day.' At the time of the writing of the letter, 5p.m., he has 'just been looking for your card and place of residence and find that I should have called at 3 1/2 PM instead of 5 1/2 as I had got it in my head'. He hopes that Draper will not think him 'ungenerous', and assures him that the visit would have given him great pleasure. In 1867, having returned to his Wisconsin farm after serving in the Union army, Bates made a bet with a neighbour that he could not walk through the southern states with the Union flag, owing to the bitterness and Confederate sentiments of the southerners. Having been reported on by Mark Twain, Bates won his bet, as everywhere he went he was greeted with kindness. 1872 saw a similar bet ($1000 to Bates's $100), when he repeated his perambulations in England, then considered to be harbouring Confederate sympathies. Such was the positive response that halfway through the English march he cabled back to America: 'Cancel wager. I regard this mission as something finer than a matter of money.'