May 23, 2013 - Sale 2316

Sale 2316 - Lot 8

Price Realized: $ 840
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
ON HER MEMOIR OF GEORGE WASHINGTON (CIVIL WAR.) LEE, MARY CUSTIS. Autograph Letter Signed, "M.C. Lee," to Colonel Edward G.W. Butler, promoting her memoir on George Washington, and apologizing that Robert E. Lee had been unable to visit Butler in Louisiana. With original envelope, addressed in her hand. 3 1/2 pages, 8vo, written on a single folded sheet. "White House" [VA], March 1860
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". . . I hope 'ere this, you have seen my Book, & that it has made a favorable impression upon you. I had a letter from the Printers Derby & Jackson when it was first issued saying that they would thankfully receive any aid or hint from me that might assist in its circulation . . . . I hope that everything has been conducted with proper etiquette & that the work has met with a kind reception in New Orleans. It certainly ought to be most valuable as a reliable production, for you know my Father had a most retentive & unerring memory & no one living could have had such opportunities of knowing all about Washington. If Parke has gone please send the enclosed [not present] to her. . . .
". . . Mr. Lee regretted very much that he could not go & see you but you know how officers always imagine they must go post haste, to their destination--we heard from him in New Orleans & he must now be in San Antonio. . . ."
Working from the recollections of her father, George Washington Parke Custis, and with the aid of historian Benson J. Lossing, Lee published Recollections and Private Memoir of George Washington in 1859.
From the Allyn Kellogg Ford Collection, property of the Minnesota Historical Society (see Swann 2276, April 17, 2012).