CIVIL WAR]. LEE, Robert E. Autograph letter signed ("R. E. Lee") to Mr. Shippen, Petersburg, 14 November 1864. 1 page, 4to, with original envelope and WITH AUTOGRAPH FREE FRANK ("R. E. LEE GEN."). KEEPING UP MORALE AT PETERSBURG: "I...WILL HAVE TO BE PASSING ALONG THE LINES FROM ONE SIDE OF THE RIVER TO THE OTHER" LEE DECLINES AN OFFER OF COMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS DURING THE PETERSBURG SIEGE. During the winter of 1864, with the opposing armies stalemated at Petersburg, Lee made his camp headquarters on the property of the Shippen family and their estate, "Violet Bank." Here, he responds to the family's offer to use their house for his personal winter quarters. "Upon reflection I think it best not to accept your kind offer of the house at Violet Bank. I shall be located at no one place this winter as far as I can judge, but will have to be passing along the lines from one side of the river to the other. I cannot therefore see to the house or take care of it, & you had better place in it someone who can. I hope to be able to get over to see Mrs. Shippen but am obliged to this mn g to go to the right, which may detain me till night. If I should not be able to see her, please present my kind regards to her & Willie & say that I shall always remember them." Lee dared not remove himself from his dwindling army in this crucial last winter of the war. After the brutal fighting from the Wilderness to Petersburg, his forces totaled barely 60,000, desertions grew to alarming proportions and his forces were stretched thin along a broad front. None of his losses could be easily replaced while Grant's robust force continually grew in numbers, equipment and confidence. Lee sensed that he alone was keeping the army together, and that only personal devotion to him among a large segment of the men kept his force from disintegrating. So he spent much of that winter in the saddle, "passing...from one side of the river to the other," keeping himself visible to his thinly deployed troops. The news from other theatres was only more discouraging. Furious fighting continued in Georgia after the burning of Atlanta, and on an ironic note, on the same day that Lee writes this, Lincoln in Washington accepted the resignation from the Army of General George B. McClellan, Lee's old opponent, whom Lincoln had defeated in the Presidential election barely a week before.
CIVIL WAR]. LEE, Robert E. Autograph letter signed ("R. E. Lee") to Mr. Shippen, Petersburg, 14 November 1864. 1 page, 4to, with original envelope and WITH AUTOGRAPH FREE FRANK ("R. E. LEE GEN."). KEEPING UP MORALE AT PETERSBURG: "I...WILL HAVE TO BE PASSING ALONG THE LINES FROM ONE SIDE OF THE RIVER TO THE OTHER" LEE DECLINES AN OFFER OF COMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS DURING THE PETERSBURG SIEGE. During the winter of 1864, with the opposing armies stalemated at Petersburg, Lee made his camp headquarters on the property of the Shippen family and their estate, "Violet Bank." Here, he responds to the family's offer to use their house for his personal winter quarters. "Upon reflection I think it best not to accept your kind offer of the house at Violet Bank. I shall be located at no one place this winter as far as I can judge, but will have to be passing along the lines from one side of the river to the other. I cannot therefore see to the house or take care of it, & you had better place in it someone who can. I hope to be able to get over to see Mrs. Shippen but am obliged to this mn g to go to the right, which may detain me till night. If I should not be able to see her, please present my kind regards to her & Willie & say that I shall always remember them." Lee dared not remove himself from his dwindling army in this crucial last winter of the war. After the brutal fighting from the Wilderness to Petersburg, his forces totaled barely 60,000, desertions grew to alarming proportions and his forces were stretched thin along a broad front. None of his losses could be easily replaced while Grant's robust force continually grew in numbers, equipment and confidence. Lee sensed that he alone was keeping the army together, and that only personal devotion to him among a large segment of the men kept his force from disintegrating. So he spent much of that winter in the saddle, "passing...from one side of the river to the other," keeping himself visible to his thinly deployed troops. The news from other theatres was only more discouraging. Furious fighting continued in Georgia after the burning of Atlanta, and on an ironic note, on the same day that Lee writes this, Lincoln in Washington accepted the resignation from the Army of General George B. McClellan, Lee's old opponent, whom Lincoln had defeated in the Presidential election barely a week before.
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Create an alert![CIVIL WAR]. LEE, Robert E. Autograph letter signed (](http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d45270/d4527071r.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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