LEE, Robert E. (1807-1870). Autograph letter signed in the margin of the first leaf ("R. E. Lee"), as commandant at West Point, to George Washington Custis Lee (1832-1913). Baltimore, 15 June 1851.

4 pages, 4to, on a bifolium, some soiling and minor staining.

"YOU MUST NOT THINK I DEEM YOU GUILTY OF INTENTIONAL CRIMINALITY"

Robert E. Lee writes his son George after alcohol was found in his room at West Point (see previous lot). His son facing possible expulsion from the military academy, Lee tries to assure him: "What is done is done. It is useless to lament the past. But strive for the future; that is within your reach. I trust all may yet turn out for good...I hope you can bring evidence to your innocence sufficient to mollify the sentence if not to exonerate you. You may also prove that you had not drunk a drop, but it will be difficult to prove that you did not intend to do it. And though the testimony, that you had it in possession is perfect, still you may be able to prove it did not belong to you, that you neither introduced it or cause it to be introduced into your room, and therefore strictly speaking you did not possess it, or have it in your possession. Can you prove so much? Converse with me freely. Tell me all for and against you. It will satisfy me even if I cannot help you."

Lee implores his son: "You tell me not to distress myself on your account. If you can tell me how to arrest the flowing of the Hudson and to still the winds of its mountains, it will not be difficult to accomplish as what you exhort me to do in reference to yourself." Ultimately, George Lee was not expelled and received only minor punishments for his infraction of West Point's temperance rules.

Property from the James Milgram, M.D., Collection of Broadsides, Ephemeral Americana, and Historical Documents