ALS signed “G. T. Beauregard,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 6.75, October 1, 1875. Addressed from Crab Orchard Springs in Kentucky, a handwritten letter to Colonel Thomas A. Scott, president of the Texas and Pacific Railway, in full: “Your favor of the 22d ulto. Has just been received here. I will always be happy to contribute my little mite toward that greatest of undertakings to the South, the Texas Pacific R.R. which, I trust, will meet with no narrow-minded opposition in the next Congress. Allow me to suggest to you the propriety of collecting together, in pamphlet form, the best articles that have appeared in the newspapers, relative to that enterprise to be distributed among the Members of Congress, before the assembling of that body, that they may have leisure to familiarize themselves with the merits of subject, before the bill is presented for their action. I think that a few hundred dollars, thus expended, rc’d, be amply compensated by the result obtained. I enclose you a good article advocating that Road, from the Louisville Courier of the 28th ulto. I sent another one, a few days since, very much to the point, to our very worthy friend Col. Bev. Tucker to whom I had made the same suggestion relative to the pamphlet. Congratulating the Texas Pacific R. R. Co. in having so able, energetic & enterprising a gentleman as yourself as the head of its affairs.” In fine condition.
During the American Civil War, railwayman Thomas Scott was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to serve as U.S. Assistant Secretary of War and, in said capacity, his leadership helped railroads play a major role in the reliable movement of supplies and troops. After the war, Scott helmed several railroad companies, including Texas & Pacific, Union Pacific, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the latter of which became the largest publicly traded corporation in the world, and received much criticism for his conduct in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and as a ‘robber baron.’ Scott helped negotiate the Republican Party's Compromise of 1877 with the Democratic Party, which settled the disputed presidential election of 1876 in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the federal government pulling out its military forces from the South and ending the Reconstruction era.
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