You Can Buy a Rare Letter by George Washington Written at a Crucial Turning Point in the Revolutionary War

A rare letter from George Washington expressing his faith in the American Revolution—even after a major strategic setback in 1777—went up for sale this Presidents’ Day. It’s estimated to fetch some $150,000.

Washington likely dictated the double-sided letter to an aide at his field headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, nearly 250 years ago. The paper bears Washington’s signature and a possible fingerprint, according to the Washington Post’s Michael E. Ruane.

“This is a powerful expression of the spirit of the American uprising from the mind of its commander in chief and future first president,” says Nathan Raab, president of the Pennsylvania-based Raab Collection, the firm that’s selling the letter, in a statement. He calls the letter, which belonged to a private collection in New England for decades, “a truly remarkable find and an evocative piece of our national history.”

Washington wrote the letter in May 1777 in reply to a concerned subordinate, who had updated him about the dire state of affairs in Connecticut.

In late April 1777, 1,500 British soldiers and loyalists landed on the Connecticut shore and marched 25 miles inland. Their goal was to destroy a Continental Army supply depot in Danbury, which they hoped would quash the rebels’ spirits, military resolve and supply chain.

Because of its inland location, Danbury was believed to be “beyond easy reach of the British,” according to ConnecticutHistory.com. But as the British arrived in Danbury that evening, they encountered little resistance.

By the time the raid was over, the British had torched storehouses and barns, destroying thousands of barrels of beef, flour, wheat, oats and corn. They left one of the Continental Army’s most crucial supply depots in smoldering ruins.

The loss seemed devastating for the American troops, who had been waging a brutal war for almost two years. In a letter to Washington, Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons called it “an event very alarming to the country.” He added, “I hope the effect will not be fatal to the Army.”

But in his reply to Parsons, Washington took a more optimistic view.

“The loss of the flour at Danbury is to be regretted,” Washington wrote, “but I cannot consider it in the important light you seem to do.”

At first, he was pragmatic. He ordered other supply depots in coastal Connecticut to be moved farther inland where they were not “liable to be destroyed on any sudden debarkation of the enemy.”

But instead of dwelling on the losses in Danbury, Washington focused on the events that followed. As the British withdrew from the depot, citizen militias repeatedly attacked. Troops under the command of Major General David Wooster and Brigadier General Benedict Arnold then attempted to block the British from getting back to the coast, prompting a battle in Ridgefield. The British won, but not without suffering heavy losses.

Although the British raid on Danbury was technically successful, the actions of American civilians and troops gave Washington hope for the future.

“I am inclined to believe they will pursue such measures with a great degree of caution,” Washington wrote of the British. “For tho’ they afforded themselves the stores at Danbury, yet it was with considerable loss and they are convinced whenever they make an impression, the country will recur to arms.”

Taking the long view, Washington saw that bags of flour and corn were worth little compared to a fierce counterattack by citizen militias. At the very least, Washington sought to assure the fretful Parsons that all was not yet lost.

“Danbury revealed one of the assets against the British, the everyday citizen, these citizen militias and self-armed farmers,” Raab tells the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe, noting the letter’s “sense of optimism and confidence.”

In another notable passage, Washington mentions letting “invalids or [those] too weak to proceed yet from inoculation” stay behind at the new depot locations, instead of preparing for battle. This aside is a rare reference to the efforts Washington employed in February 1777 to have the whole Continental Army inoculated against smallpox.

“It’s an important moment in science and medicine, certainly from the military perspective, so in terms of that and seeing Washington talk about everyday countrymen picking up arms to fight the British, I’ve never seen anything like it on the market,” says Raab to the Guardian.

As Raab tells the Washington Post, “A letter like this with this powerful, evocative statement reflecting on the essence of the American Revolution—they are very, very hard to find.”

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.