Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 36

Price Realized: $ 28,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
ARNOLD'S RAIDERS HAVE "HAVE HAD THE WINDS AT THEIR COMMAND" JEFFERSON, THOMAS. Autograph Letter Signed, "Th:Jefferson," as Governor of Virginia, to Brigadier General George Weedon, asking Weedon to halt for a day until Benedict Arnold's intentions become clearer. With franking signature "Th:Jefferson" on address leaf. 1 page, folio, with integral address leaf; edge wear with partial loss of two letters in date line, lacking 1 1/2-inch strip from fore-edge of address leaf; nearly intact seal on address leaf. Richmond [VA], 4 p.m., 11 January 1781

Additional Details

Jefferson reports on the movements of Benedict Arnold's raiding party through Virginia: "If they should pass Burwell's ferry . . . your whole attention should be pointed to Fredsbrg. They have had the winds at their command & I am persuaded are at this moment either past Burwell's ferry or in Williamsburg. . . . By halting a day you will refresh your men, & perhaps increase your numbers so as to render your approach to Williamsburg more safe and more effectually relieving. . . . I cannot do better now than to leave you master of your own actions, as events may become known to you sooner than to me, which might render any thing positive not only improper but mischeivous." Published in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:339-340.