Sep 24, 2020 - Sale 2546

Sale 2546 - Lot 53

Price Realized: $ 1,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
LEE IS "UNDOUBTEDLY ONE OF THE GREATEST GEN[ERAL]S IN THIS OR ANY AGE" (CIVIL WAR--CONFEDERATE.) Robert T. Crenshaw. Letter by a Mississippi soldier describing generals Lee and Longstreet. Autograph Letter Signed to cousin Sallie A. Austin of Elkton, TN. 4 pages, 9 x 7 1/4 inches, on one folding sheet; minor foxing and wear, a few words underlined, laminated. Culpeper Court House, VA, 7 June 1863

Additional Details

Robert Thompson Crenshaw (1840-1864) attended the University of Mississippi before the war, and wrote this letter as a private in Company F (the Tallahatchie Rifles) in the 21st Mississippi Infantry. He discusses his opinion of several Confederate generals: "Watch for the names of Longstreet & McLaws & you will be able to identify our part of the drama. . . . Jackson had unbounded confidence in Ewell, who shared with him the glories of the Valley Campaign. He lost a leg at Manassas No. 2. . . . Gen. A.P. Hill . . . fights with a vigor, second only to old Stonewall. He is proud, haughty & fights as much from ambition as for devotion to country. He was quite repulsive to Jackson. . . . Gen. Longstreet is the sturdiest fighter this revolution has produced. He moves as if by machinery. He makes no quick and straddling flank movements; he always fronts the enemy, moves upon him in steady column, strikes his blows with the deliberation & strength of a cyclops, follows his shattered columns with ponderous blows, or if he retreats, he falls back, face to the enemy with a dogged resolution which no disaster can shake. . . . Gen. Lee is about 55 yrs old, about 5 ft 11 in high, splendidly framed, the air and bearing of a Roman . . . every inch a soldier, just such as you have pictured Alex or Caesar. . . . He is undoubtedly one of the greatest gens in this or any age, in any country."