Stuart, James Ewell Brown ("Jeb") | "Before another week we expect to win another glorious victory. Hurrah! Hurrah!!"

Property of a New York Collector

Stuart, James Ewell Brown ("Jeb")

Autograph letter signed with initial ("S") as CSA general, to Laura Ratcliffe, providing enthusiastic battle reports, including a precipitate account of Shiloh

2 1/2 pages (153 x 97 mm) on a bifolium of machine-laid paper (watermarked Joynson | 1856), Rappahanock, 8 April 1862, with original autograph envelope (with printed address "Head Quarters Cavalry Brigade, Army of the Potomac") addressed to Miss Ratcliffe at "Beauty's Bower"; envelope worn and stained.

An exuberant letter, with romantic overtones, from Stuart to a Confederate woman spy: "Before another week we expect to win another glorious victory. Hurrah! Hurrah!!"

Laura Ratcliffe lived in Fairfax, Virginia, and her home was sometimes used as a headquarters by the ranger John Singleton Mosby. Ratcliffe used to hide messages and money for Mosby, and once hid him from a search party of Federal troops. Among other Confederate officers to whom she offered various types of support was J. E. B. Stuart, who corresponded with her and occasionally even sent her poetry.

The present letter recounts a recent series of Confederate victories—including a premature claim regarding the battle of Shiloh—and anticipates others, perhaps even an invasion of Pennsylvania. "We are here quietly waiting for the yankees and if they ever come we will send them howling through Fairfax again. We have won a glorious victory in New Mexico, capturing the whole Federal command 5000, under Genl. Canby. We have also won a glorious victory near Corinth on the Tenn. Captured 3 Genls. Smith, McClernand & Prentiss, & six thousand prisoners, all their artillery & camp equipage & rumor says we are here to bag the remainder who are in full retreat. A. S. Johnston was killed. Beauregard & Bragg were there." The closing of the letter turns rather more personal, but still maintains the tone of martial enthusiasm: "I have thought of you much, & hope soon to see you all again. Before another week we expect to win another glorious victory. Hurrah! Hurrah!! I wish I could see you read this. My regards to your folks. The bullet-proof is all right."

Stuart's report on Shiloh, the battle "near Corinth on the Tenn.," was too hasty. The first day's fighting, 6 April, did favor the rebels, but after General Johnston's death a Union counterattack reversed fortunes the next day. General Benjamin Prentiss did indeed surrender his division during the battle (for which he was sharply criticized by U. S. Grant in his Memoirs), but General Charles F. Smith did not participate in the battle, being laid up by an infection that would kill him before the end of the month. General John A. McClernand was not only not captured, he played a significant role in the counteroffensive formulated by Grant. By 8 April, the date of Stuart's letter, it was the Union Army that was in pursuit of retreating Confederates.

The envelope for the letter bears the engraved address of "Head Quarters Cavalry Brigade, Army of the Potomac." The Confederate Army of the Potomac was commanded by P. G. T. Beauregard, but in mid-March 1862 it was renamed as the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

PROVENANCE:

Christie's New York, 16 December 2004, lot 369 [part] ("The Property of a Southern Gentleman")