Nov 09, 2004 - Sale 2021

Sale 2021 - Lot 90

Price Realized: $ 8,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
DESCRIBING CAVALRY DRILLS AT WEST POINT CUSTER, GEORGE ARMSTRONG. Autograph Letter Signed, "G. A. Custer," to Minnie St. Clair, a flirtatious letter scolding her for not writing and threatening to punish her when he sees her again in Monroe, writing about life as a cadet at West Point with details on the cavalry exercises he is learning, describing ice skating on the Hudson, and asking for gossip from back home. With a postscript at the top of the first page Signed "Armstrong" apologizing for the envelope [not present]. 8 pages, 2 folded 8vo sheets; minor staining on one, usual folds. West Point, 19 January 1859
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details



". . . You will be surprised when I tell you that I have been looking for the answer to my last letters . . . and I have been disappointed so long that I had almost given up all hope of hearing from you . . . I supposed that you had received my letter and that some of those young Buffalo gents had stolen your heart and consequently you had not time to spare a few minutes in writing to me. I intended to wait until I came to Monroe and then I was going to give you the best scolding that you have had for some time, but I think you must have a great opinion of me to think that I would begin or ask you to correspond with me and then drop it without any reason whatever . . . when I visit the city of flowers next summer I [will] ask you to pay damages . . . are you not frightened? . . . At the examination which has just closed twenty two cadets were pronounced deficient by the Academic Board and discharged among those was a grandson of Martin Van Buren. For the past six months I have been studying Rhetoric, French, Descriptive Geometry, Analytical Geometry, Shades Shadows & Perspective, and in addition I have had cavalry exercises or riding lessons. We have an hour in the afternoon to ride . . . we run races jump ditches and bars or hurdles . . . mount and dismount our horses while they are going at a gallop, ride on one side of our horses or rather hang on one side and fire pistols under the necks of our horses at a mark and do this at a full gallop . . ."