Rare George Washington letter from key point in revolutionary war goes on sale

A letter written by George Washington, providing rare understanding of his confidence in regular Americans to fight and win the revolutionary war, has been put up for sale on Presidents Day.

The first US president penned the document as leader of the Continental Army in 1777, shortly after British forces ransacked a vital military supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut – a devastating action that fellow general Samuel Parsons wrote him was “an event very alarming to the country”.

The handwritten reply, hidden from public view for decades in a private collection in New England, shows that Washington refused to consider the episode as a crippling blow to his military campaign. Instead, he was encouraged by the response of colonists and local militiamen in launching a hastily convened but fierce counterattack on the raiders.

“I am inclined to believe they [the British] will pursue such measures with a great degree of caution. For tho’ they afford themselves the stores at Danbury, yet it was with considerable loss and they are convinced whenever they make an impression, the Country will recur to arms,” Washington wrote.

Washington’s army, based in Morristown, New Jersey, was formed of soldiers from the 13 colonies that became the first US states the year previously, and with help from France and Spain ultimately forced a British surrender.

The revelatory letter, written from Morristown on 7 May 1777, is expected to sell for $150,000 through the Raab Collection

Here’s another little story, and to this day it kinda grinds my gears.

I was a grad student at U Cal Santa Barbara from 1982-4, but I was only on campus one year when I completed all my PhD classwork. (I had a wife with a job in AZ and had to return).

Even when I arrived there, I had already published one book, “A History of Banking in Arizona,” numerous prize winning national articles, and had a second co-authored book almost complete. That was in addition to my doctoral manuscript, completed in 1984. I can honestly say there wasn’t another history graduate student even remotely in my class when it came to publishing-—the Pole Star of academia.

Well, another grad student working for whacko Indian historian Wilbur Jacobs somehow was contacted by local woman who found a trunk full of papers and letters. Many of these were George Washington originals, and many dealing with Indian tribes and the treaties Washington had with them. Totallyl new and undiscovered to that point. She gave them to this fellow, who naturally (as he should) used them in his doctoral dissertation.

People magazine caught wind and did a feature story on him, saying, “if there is a hot young historian in America, so and so is it.” Well the fact is, I was the real “hot young historian” but because I was a conservative and did grunt data work digging out what happened in banking in the American South, and didn’t have some Washington papers handed to me, he got the publicity. That bugged me.

I got my revenge upon graduation. As best I can tell, I had a job offer before I even left the stage. I don’t think the ever taught in a university. I’ve never seen any books, articles, or book reviews by him. Kind of a waste of primary sources.

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