Aide-de-camp to Robert E. Lee during the Civil War (1830–1902) and author of General Order No. 9, Lee’s famous farewell address. Exceptional ALS, five pages on three sheets, 5 x 8, personal letterhead, no date but circa 1880s. Letter to C. C. Buel, an editor of Battles and Leaders, refuting a claim regarding where Lee was at the time of Pickett’s Charge. In part: “I have read the communication enclosed…and have only to say that its statements with reference to Gen. Lee are purely imaginative. Gen. Lee’s position at the time of the attack of July 3rd was on a ridge in rear of the line of battle…A wide valley lay between him and the adversary line, which he watched from that position, until it became evident that his troops were retiring from the attack. He then rode forward and met them. The first man nearly he encountered was General Kemper (afterwards Gov. Kemper) of Va. who was being borne to the rear very badly wounded, and it was to Gen. K. that Gen. Lee said that the responsibility & blame were all his own. He occupied himself & all his staff unengaged after the retreat of the attacking force (which was composed in part of Pickett’s division) in rallying…expecting that the enemy would pursue. Gen. Lee was not in the building referred to in the communication of Mr. Clegg during the engagement of July 3rd. He went in the morning of July 2nd (I think, but) possibly July 3rd into a building that was called a ‘College’ to make an observation of the field. At that time, there was no fighting going on, beyond an occasional shot in the patrol line, and whether it was the 2nd or 3rd of July, Pickett’s division had not then reached the battlefield. Gen. Lee took the position in rear of the line of battle before our artillery fire opened, and did not leave it until he saw that our men were falling back…what [Mr. Clegg] writes does not seem new to me, and as far as it concerns Gen. Lee, and as far as it undertakes to describe the advance of Pickett, it is a pure fiction.” In a lengthy postscript, signed “C. M.,” Marshall adds, in part: “You will readily see that if men advance to an attack, formed as Mr. Clegg describes, the only possible result would be to intensify the effect of the fire of the force they attack, without the least increasing the strength of their attack in proportion to the number of troops used in making it. What he writes is such trash.” A few trivial stains and some slight surface loss to edges of the second sheet, otherwise fine condition. Lee ordered Pickett’s Charge on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, in what ended up being a catastrophic defeat for the Confederacy. He gambled everything on the ‘charge,’ and the disastrous result—with a 50% casualty rate for the Confederates—effectively decided the outcome of the bloodiest engagement in American history. This marked not only a definitive moment in the battle, but a turning point in the war—the Confederate advance at Gettysburg is considered the ‘high-water mark of the Confederacy,’ and Lee’s strategic decisions have been a source of controversy and scrutiny ever since. Pickett never forgave Lee for ordering the assault, and even Lee himself immediately recognized his grave tactical error—the ‘mistake of all mistakes’—as Marshall describes here. An amazing letter addressing this most famous event, penned by a confidant of the South’s commander and a direct participant in the battle. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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