China

Overview Mainly letters written to Bassel from U.S. Army officers from various forts and camps in several western states and territories. There are no copies of Bassel's correspondence in the collection, but his career in the army to about 1870, his subsequent military service in Egypt, and his employment in China and Japan, ca.1874-1875, as the representative of an American ship builder, are covered in the letters. There are a few letters from Thomas Handbury, a cadet at West Point in 1862; also...