DAVIS JEFFERSON Colonel Davis and his Mississippi Rifles lea

Sale 2253 - Lot 136

Price Realized: $ 3,120

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

DAVIS, JEFFERSON. Colonel Davis and his Mississippi Rifles leave tomorrow for the Rio Grande. Autograph Letter Signed to President Polk. One page, 10 x 8 inches, with extensive docketing on verso. New Orleans, LA, 23 July 1846

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

With the Mexican War breaking out, Davis had recently resigned his seat in the United States House of Representatives to take charge of a new regiment, the Mississippi Rifles, as colonel. "The rifles which you had the kindness to order for the Mississippi Regt. have not arrived. . . . I have sent forward the larger portion of my Regt. (7 companies) and will leave with the remaining three tomorrow morning to join the companies en route at the mouth of the Rio Grande." Also recommends a lieutenant for promotion. The docketing notes that the rifles were forwarded to Davis's regiment on the front on 8 August.
Just fifteen years later, the federal government would have cause to question the wisdom of entrusting Jefferson Davis with so many rifles. Not published in The Papers of Jefferson Davis.