Churchill, Winston S. Autograph Letter, signed Cairo, September, 1898. One sheet folded in half creating 4 pp.. Folded 8vo sheet, with original hand-addressed postal envelope. To G.W. Hobson of the 12th Lancers in Aldershot [England]: "I have felt inclined to write for some days and tell you how much I sympathise with your regiment in losing Robert Grenfell. Although I had not known him long, I got to know him very well during our march up country we always lived together and ate our meals together. I had a very long talk with him the night before the action...He was an extraordinarily keen soldier, and was always bustling about collecting details of boats and stores & guns, which he duly recorded in his note book. Two days before the action he had a bad attack of dysentery and only his pluck enabled him to keep in the saddle...I myself saw him cantering easily along within two hundred yards of the Dervishes under a hot and dangerous fire-the beau-ideal of a cavalry subaltern. As to his death-I was of course no witness for we passed on and were busy reforming afterwards. But his body lay on the attack side of the Khor and I therefore conclude he must have been shot before ever reaching the enemy and cut up as he lay on the ground...I think the news took the pleasure & excitement out of most of us. For my part his figure...will always be associated in my mind with a feeling of pain and sorrow. I write this to you because you are the only officer I know in your regiment. But if there is anyone who was a great friend of Grenfell's it might interest him to read this before you destroy it." Light horizontal creases along old folds, with two separations, but with no loss to contents; some light wrinkling and minor spotting. The 23-year-old Churchill served as a cavalry officer in the 21st Lancers of Herbert Kitchener's army during the Anglo-Sudan war. In early September of 1898 Churchill took part in his first cavalry charge near Khartoum. Robert Grenfell, whom Churchill had befriended, was one of the British officers killed in the charge.
Churchill, Winston S. Autograph Letter, signed Cairo, September, 1898. One sheet folded in half creating 4 pp.. Folded 8vo sheet, with original hand-addressed postal envelope. To G.W. Hobson of the 12th Lancers in Aldershot [England]: "I have felt inclined to write for some days and tell you how much I sympathise with your regiment in losing Robert Grenfell. Although I had not known him long, I got to know him very well during our march up country we always lived together and ate our meals together. I had a very long talk with him the night before the action...He was an extraordinarily keen soldier, and was always bustling about collecting details of boats and stores & guns, which he duly recorded in his note book. Two days before the action he had a bad attack of dysentery and only his pluck enabled him to keep in the saddle...I myself saw him cantering easily along within two hundred yards of the Dervishes under a hot and dangerous fire-the beau-ideal of a cavalry subaltern. As to his death-I was of course no witness for we passed on and were busy reforming afterwards. But his body lay on the attack side of the Khor and I therefore conclude he must have been shot before ever reaching the enemy and cut up as he lay on the ground...I think the news took the pleasure & excitement out of most of us. For my part his figure...will always be associated in my mind with a feeling of pain and sorrow. I write this to you because you are the only officer I know in your regiment. But if there is anyone who was a great friend of Grenfell's it might interest him to read this before you destroy it." Light horizontal creases along old folds, with two separations, but with no loss to contents; some light wrinkling and minor spotting. The 23-year-old Churchill served as a cavalry officer in the 21st Lancers of Herbert Kitchener's army during the Anglo-Sudan war. In early September of 1898 Churchill took part in his first cavalry charge near Khartoum. Robert Grenfell, whom Churchill had befriended, was one of the British officers killed in the charge.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
