Monday, March 30, 2009

New Found Letter By Robert E. Lee.




The other day I had a gentleman by the name of Mr. Dan Taylor, write me asking for some help on a Civil War letter, that has been in is family since the start of the war. He told me he was trying to figure out a name in the letter so he may research it more. Well I said I would try, well when part of the letter came I almost fell out of my chair it was a unpublished letter by Robert E. Lee, I couldn't believe it. Mr. Taylor could only send parts of the letter at a time as his scanner wasn’t working all that well. In the end I got the whole letter, and with the help of my daughter we finely figured out the name it was Captain Philip H. Trout.
I asked Mr. Taylor how he came by the letter and this is what he said; “ The letter has been in my family since the war and I really don't think the letter was ever sent because Lee was a personal friend of my ancestors. There would be no reason that we would have had the letter unless Lee had left it at our home or my great grandmother lifted it from his coat while sitting on his lap. It has been said for many years that she sat on his lap as a child when he would come to visit.”

After we figured out it was Philip H. Trout he did a search on the net and found out what his company was, which was Company A. He then did a search for that company and found a document stating the names of the people in that company and low and behold He found the name of his Great -G-grandfather who was Richard Mauzy. He says that must be where the letter came from and how it got into our family.

As for me I like the story where his great grandmother took the letter from his coat pocket, which could be possible, I know when I was a child and sat on my grandfathers lap I would love to take things out of his shirt pocket, most children do. If this was the case then the letter that is known ( Which I have not seen,) and talks about that company maybe the second letter, for when Lee went to send the first order he found it missing and had to rewrite the order, or Lee may have went to send it and found it missing thinking he miss laid it or just lost it and rewrote the order. If this is true then this letter may be more important then the first.
Note. These photo's can be enlarged by pushing on them.

Mr. Taylor is kind enough to allow me to put those parts of the letter here. If you have any questions he can be reached at the following address.
taylor777@verizon.net

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