MOSBY, JOHN S. (1833-1916). ALS to General Fitzhugh Lee. San Francisco, CA, 17 December 1895. Revealing insights from conversations with General Robert E. Lee and the doctor who attended Stonewall Jackson at First Manassas.
3 pages, 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 in., separations to folds, chipping to edges/corners, some soiling and staining. On Southern Pacific Company Law Department letterhead. Docketing to verso.
In reply to a previous letter from Lee apparently containing multiple questions, Mosby responds with answers, numbered I-II. His first answer deals with a conversation between Mosby and a Doctor Campbell of Abington, who served as a surgeon at the First Battle of Manassas. Mosby writes that Dr. Campbell was an acquaintance of his from before the war, and that after the war Campbell talked to him about the battle. Mosby writes, "...he told me that on the battle field after the enemy retreated he dressed General Jackson's wounded hand, & that while he was doing so, Jackson remarked - 'I wonder if General Johnston & Beauregard know how badly they are whipped- If they will let me I will march my brigade into Washington tonight-'"
Mosby writes that he has relayed this information "a thousand times," and that when he was last in Washington, General Payne showed him where he had written the encounter in the margin of a page in a book by Dick Taylor.
The second answer Mosby provides relates to a conversation he had with General Robert E. Lee at his headquarters in January of 1865. He writes that General Lee had invited him to dinner, and that after dinner the two men retired to Lee's room for conversation.
In part: "...we were alone & he was unusually communicative. He talked about the military policy that had been pursued & then said - 'I wrote Johnston after he had fallen back on the Rapidan, to turn round & go back toward Washington, & this wd. bring McClellan back there.' He then added - 'Johnston wrote me that he didn't have the transportation.' This statement is verified by the war records - See April 1862 - Again in the same conversation General Lee said that Johnston should have never fallen back to Richmond from Yorktown but should have delivered a general battle on the narrow isthmus at Williamsburg when McClellan's superior numbers wd. have been neutralized by the character of the ground."
Mosby ends by saying that he has always felt some diffidence in repeating Lee's words because people could think that he was trying to give the impression that he and General Robert E. Lee were on "very intimate and confidential" terms.
Docketing to verso provides a summary of the key points of Mosby's letter.
Letter accompanied by typewritten transcription.
When Mosby returned to the United States from his work as a US consul in Hong Kong in 1885, he lived in San Francisco and worked as a lawyer for Southern Pacific Railroad, a position secured for him by his friend, former president Ulysses S. Grant, and which he held until 1901.
This lot is located in Cincinnati.
The John Singleton Mosby Collection of Hugh C. Keen
