Lot 187 email save

GEORGE PATTON JR. HANDWRITTEN SIGNED LETTER

Sign In to see what this sold for

"IF WE FIGHT JAPAN - WHICH GOD GRANT - WE WILL BE BEATEN TO A PULP"

187. GEORGE S. PATTON JR. (1895-1945). Celebrated Lt. General of the Army, one of the finest tank commanders ever, who advanced to full general (1945) after he led the Third Army at Normandy and through France. Controversial throughout his career, his toughness on his enemies as well as his own troops earned him the name "Old Blood and Guts." Superb content early ALS, 4pp with integral leaf, 5½"x7", West Point, Jan 24, 1909. On West Point letterhead to his mother regarding his class trip to the Watervliet Arsenal, the principal Federal manufacturer of large caliber cannon. In part, "We had a hell of a trip yesterday up to Water Vliet Arsenal at Albany...But we saw a lot and learned above all things how much it costs to kill a man. They have machines so big they are hard to describe, laithes two hundred feet long out turning like a carriage wheel as far as ease of motion is concerned. Yet there was a sad thing in connection with it too. We have not got manned enough field guns by half to fight a battle like Sedan [probably referencing the 1870 battle that practically decided the Franco-Prussian War in favor of Prussia]. We have not got organized a single siege battery and yet the straps were hardly working to one fourth their capacity. If we fight Japan - which God grant - we will be beaten to a pulp until this great and glorious bunch of grafting politicians are all hung and the Army gets what it should, we have not got enough men to police N.Y. state much less enter a war..." He then rails against the "Crozier Elimination bill...to stop counting cadet service in elementary..." He continues, "If we don't have a war and a big one pretty damned soon the army won't be a fit place for any man to stay. Bea is in Va. now but she is coming up here next Sunday God willing, so there is yet some use in living but not much as I did not get a letter today though it was because both came yesterday..." Darkly penned and signed the year he graduated, receiving a cavalry officer's commission, and one year before he married his longtime sweetheart Beatrice Ayre. Original mailing folds; else Fine. The young warrior would have to wait until 1916 for war and glory when he accompanied General Pershing in the Mexican Expedition and into France during World War I. Est: $5000-9000

Presented by Signature House

View Signature House next auction.

Similar lots up for auction