Letters by Robert E. Lee, Einstein, Emerson, and U.S. Presidents to Auction

University Archives' September 18 Rare Signed Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Memorabilia auction will also feature items consigned by the Manuscript Society from the estate of manuscript dealers and rare book scholars Forest G. & Forest H. Sweet and Julia Sweet Newman. Proceeds from the sale of these items will benefit the work of the Manuscript Society. 

The letter signed by Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg which will be going under the hammer is believed to be the only Gettysburg correspondence of Lee’s in private hands. Lee addressed this July 4, 1863 letter to opposing Union General George Meade, asking about Colonel Hugh Reid Miller, a captured Confederate officer of the 42nd Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers. The estimate is $40,000 - $50,000.

Other highlights include:

* a one-page autograph letter signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, dated October 22, 1954, and addressed to the first American televangelist, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

* a three page autograph letter signed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, dated March 8, 1835, addressed to a 13-year-old family friend, Lucia Russell and anticipating many ideas that Emerson would explore in his essay Nature

* a group of three typed letters signed by Richard Nixon as President, ca. 1970-1973, all addressed to President of the Khmer Republic Lon Nol, showing how Nixon’s attitude towards fighting Khmer Rouge communist guerillas and North Korean communists in Cambodia changed

* an undated two page autograph manuscript by Charles Dickens, an outline of what would become a two-hour-long stage reading of David Copperfield, previously unpublished

* a typed letter in German signed by Albert Einstein, dated October 15, 1944, addressed to university professor Giuliano Hugo Bonfante answering Bonfante’s question of whether the simplest explanation is most often correct

There are also several General George Custer lots, including an autograph letter signed twice by Custer, seeking the appointment of his lieutenant Algernon Smith, who later died at the Battle of Little Big Horn, to the rank of captain.