Civil War-dated LS signed “R. E. Lee, Gen'l,” one page, 7.75 x 10, July 21, 1862. Letter to Major General Daniel Harvey Hill, commander of the Department of North Carolina. In full: "I sent you a telegram this morning with reference to the interference with the trains on the N.C. Rail Road, urging the importance of preventing this, at once by stringent orders. Since then I have received a communication from Chas. Ellis Esqr. Pres’t of the Rich’d & Pet’burg R. R. Co., complaining of a like interference. I desire strong measures to be taken to put a stop to this on all the Rail Roads in your department. It not only delays transportation, and leads to hopeless confusion but may result in great loss of life & property. I enclose the report of such a case of sad accident on one of the best managed roads in the South." In very good to fine condition, with light toning and staining, and two small pieces of archival tape along the reverse top edge.
By July 1862, Lee had still not consolidated his forces as an organized Army of Northern Virginia. He concentrated his efforts on the south side of the James River (a vulnerable ‘back-door’ access to Richmond), as he was worried that the Union army would move on the Southern capital from that direction. Here, his strongly-worded letter commanding that all disruption of railroad transportation south of Richmond be stopped immediately, suggests that he sought to maintain order in areas not yet directly affected by the war in progress. Major General Hill was in charge of a division and later commanded a corps in the Army of Northern Virginia; he fought through the Peninsula Campaign, then was assigned to the Department of North Carolina in July 1862. The Richmond & Petersburg Rail Road ran from Richmond to Petersburg for a distance of approximately 20 miles, and was a key supply line to the Confederate capital.
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