?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1780.) Ezekiel Cornell. A general informs his governor of the desperate state of the mutinous army at Morristown. Autograph Letter Signed "Ezek Cornell" as Brigadier General to Rhode Island Governor William Greene. 2 pages, 9 x 7 1/2 inches on one sheet; moderate dampstaining. Morristown, NJ, 27 May 1780
At the Morristown winter encampment from 1779 to 1780, the Continental Army faced even colder weather than at Valley Forge. Here, as the army prepares to leave the camp, the commander of the Rhode Island militia reports back to his governor: "I . . . cannot forbear expressing my surprise at the suffering condition I find the Army in. There want of provision hath been and is at present so great that I will not undertake to describe it. Mutanies have already taken place, and it is more than probable the Army will disband themselves soon unless they are better supplied." Connecticut troops had mutinied just two days before.
Cornell adds a plea for Rhode Island to take the financial demands of the war seriously: "I trust you will be much surprised as I am by the intelligence you will receive from the Committee of Congress before this will reach you." He urges the governor to use "your influence to a compliance of every resolve & requisition of Congress and their commit's for the comfort of the army. I write to you in confidence as a friend."
Provenance: Parke-Bernet sale, 20 November 1956, lot 59; sold by Joseph Rubinfine to the consignor, November 2003.
