Nov 08, 2018 - Sale 2492

Sale 2492 - Lot 22

Price Realized: $ 688
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
"IT WAS BETTER FOR THE COUNTRY THAT I SHOULD BE FALSELY ACCUSED" (CIVIL WAR.) EDWIN M. STANTON. Autograph Letter Signed, as Secretary of War, to John C. Knox, stating his preference to remain silent despite charges that Stanton bore some responsibility [for the failures of McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign], and inviting him to visit. 1 page, 4to, "War Department" stationery, ruled paper, with integral blank; minor scattered smudging, folds. Washington, 21 July 1862

Additional Details

"I have seldom . . . been gratified so much . . . as by your generous and manly speech at Harrisburg.

"From a sense of public duty I have been compelled to remain silent and receive the fiercest assault that ever beset any public man when by the records I could have covered my revilers . . . with shame . . . . But I felt that it was better for the country that I should be falsely accused than that the truth should be published; and this course I shall observe until the end. . . ."