Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 24

Price Realized: $ 1,320
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) [Clinton, George.] Letter to General Washington concerning a band of Tory bandits in the Catskill Mountains. Autograph Letter as Governor of New York to "Dear Sir" [George Washington], retained draft with many deletions and emendations. 2 pages on one sheet, 13 x 8 1/4 inches; partial separation along one fold, two ink-burn holes, minor edge wear with minimal loss of text. Poughkeepsie, NY, 18 May 1779

Additional Details

Governor Clinton requests permission from the Commander-in-Chief to send a militia unit into the Catskills, hoping to extinguish a band of Tories and Esopus Indians who have been harassing the countryside: "I was called by an alarm on the frontiers of Ulster County, occasioned by the appearance of about one hundred Indians and Tories at Shandeacon [Shandaken], a small settlement in a gorge of the mountains. . . . It is this banditti that have committed the most of the mischief which has been done in the counties of Ulster & Orange, & have occassioned all the late distressing alarms. . . . They are perfectly acquainted with the back country, & I am apprehensive will be very troublesome."
The signed letter which was mailed to Washington is at the Library of Congress, and is published in Sparks, Correspondence of the American Revolution, II:298-301; and Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 20:523-5. Washington's response is also at the Library of Congress: "I heartily approve the expedition you propose, and thank your Excellency for suggesting it" (20:596-7). Provenance: Parke-Bernet sale, 22 November 1955, to James M. Ransom.