datestamp on cover to Auburndale, Massachusetts and forwarded to Andover the following day, 3c Rose (65) tied by matching grid, contains a letter datelined "Foster Gen. Hospital, Newburn, N.C. May 11, 1863" from Dr. J. Hill Rouse to Mrs. James Means about her husband, a minister who had died of typhoid at the hospital, endorsed "By Capt. Whipple", very fine
Dr. Rouse was an army surgeon captured at Guyandotte, (West) Virginia in October of 1861. He was imprisoned at Richmond and was at New Burn with the Reverend Means at the time of his death. George M. Whipple of Salem was captain of Company F in the 23rd Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and was deputy provost marshal at New Bern in 1862. He was discharged May 2, 1863 and carried this letter to Salem where it entered the mails.