ALS BY HUNGARIAN BORN UNION MAJOR GENERAL JULIUS STAHEL (1825-1912); MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT, US CONSUL TO JAPAN

ALS BY HUNGARIAN BORN UNION MAJOR GENERAL JULIUS STAHEL (1825-1912); MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT, US CONSUL TO JAPAN

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Item Code: 2026-1748

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Autograph letter signed "J. Stahel," one page, on a single leaf of cream note paper (approx. 5 x 8 in.), New York, February 16, 1893. Body and signature are in a single, consistent hand — a true ALS, not a secretarial or manuscript-signed example. Verso blank, showing two horizontal mailing folds and light show-through of the ink. A brief personal note to a correspondent addressed as "Steve":

"My dear Steve, Thanks. I did get the paper you sent me and acknowledged its receipt at the time. Yours, J. Stahel."

The upper margin carries a contemporary collector's docket in a second hand identifying the writer — "From General Stahel, U.S. Consul at Yokohama, Japan" — with a further, partly legible earlier annotation above it.

Julius H. Stahel-Számwald was among the most distinguished immigrant "Forty-Eighters" to serve the Union. A veteran of Kossuth's 1848 Hungarian revolution, he emigrated to New York and in 1861 helped raise the 8th New York Infantry, rising to major general by March 1863. He commanded cavalry in the defenses of Washington and through the Gettysburg Campaign, then led the 1st Cavalry Division in the Shenandoah Valley at New Market and Piedmont, where he was wounded leading his men under fire on June 5, 1864. After the war he entered the diplomatic corps, serving as U.S. consul at Yokohama (1866–1869) and Osaka (1877–1884) and consul general at Shanghai (1884–1885) — the service the docket references.

A nice point of interest: this note was written in the very year Stahel received his Medal of Honor, awarded November 4, 1893 for his gallantry at Piedmont — roughly nine months after this letter. By early 1893 the general had long left both military and consular life and was living in New York, where he worked for the Equitable Life Assurance Company.

Condition: Very good. Clean and legible, dark ink on lightly toned paper; usual mailing folds, with toning and faint show-through at the upper margin. Verso blank.

A genuine, fully handwritten letter signed by a Union major general, Medal of Honor recipient, and U.S. diplomat — an affordable, well-rounded autograph with a strong immigrant-soldier story.  [ss][ph:L]

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