1863 CONFEDERATE MANUSCRIPT FIELD ORDER By GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE / WALTER TAYLOR

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1863 CONFEDERATE MANUSCRIPT FIELD ORDER By GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE / WALTER TAYLOR:
$490.00

Exceptionally rare and fascinating, original December 17th, 1863 Autograph Letter / Field Communication / Field Order issued by Lieutenant General Robert E. Lee Commanding the Confederate States of America Army of Virginia written and signed by Lee\'s Assistant Adjutant General Lieutenant Colonel Walter H. Taylor (or a clerk on his behalf) and also signed by Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier General) George M. \"Moxley\" Sorrel as Assistant Adjutant General.

Written and issued at a time when Lee\'s Army of Northern Virginia was woefully short of food and supplies of all kinds, this Document deals with the need for Commanding and Ordnance Officers to complete and file Ordnance Returns in a prompt and complete manner.

This original Confederate Army Manuscript Document is addressed to Confederate Major General Joseph Brevard Kershaw and was in his possession at the time that he was taken prisoner at Sailor’s (Saylor’s, Sayler’s) Creek, 6 April 1865 along with Generals Ewell and Custis Lee. It came to us with a small collection of Confederate Army Field Orders / Manuscript Documents (issued by Generals Longstreet and Robert E. Lee) which we will be offering at unreserved sale over the next few weeks.

This wonderful piece of Confederate Field Communication is written on the front of a single sheet of lined paper that measures approx. 7 1/8” by 9 1/8”. The original Field Order was issued by Lieutenant General Robert E. Lee to Confederate Major General J. B. Kershaw and written and signed by Lee\'s Assistant Adjutant General Walter H. Taylor (or perhaps an assistant of Taylor\'s on his behalf) and also signed by Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier General) George M. \"Moxley\" Sorrel as Assistant Adjutant General.

The Letter is dated December 17th, 1863 from “Head Qurs Army of Nor. Va\". It reads in full:

\"General Orders
No. 168

The attention of all interested is directed to Genl. Orders No. 148 Adjt. & Inspt. Genl’s Office Richmond Nov 18, 1863 in regard to ordnance Returns. Commanding & Ordnance Officers will see that the order is strictly conformed to in every particular.

By Command of Genl. R. E. Lee
(Sig\'d) W. H. Taylor
A. A. Genl

Official / (signed) G. M. Sorrel / A. A. Genl.

For / Brigd. Genl J. B. Kershaw

Comng. 9 Div.\"

There is manuscript docketing on the reverse summarizing the content - this is likely in the hand of General Kershaw or a member of his staff.

This Order was issued during the winter of 1863 at a time when Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was very low on food and supplies of all kinds including Ordnance.

Walter Herron Taylor was a close confidant and important Staff Officer of General Robert E. Lee serving directly under Lee for the entire Civil War. From the time he reported for service in Richmond in May 1861, Walter Herron Taylor (1838-1916) was assigned to Lee’s staff as ADC and, later, AAG. Taylor was the perfect complement to Lee, handling administrative duties and correspondence, which Lee hated, with efficiency. When Lee was assigned the Army of Northern Virginia after Joe Johnston was wounded during the Peninsula Campaign, Taylor became assistant adjutant general of that army. Taylor was no ordinary staff officer, but an exceedingly capable and tireless worker with many responsibilities. He was effectively the Chief Aide-de-camp to General Lee throughout the war. And since Lee was noted for his small, over-worked staff, Taylor carried an enormous burden on his young shoulders. He wrote dispatches and orders for Lee, performed personal reconnaissance, and often carried messages in person to corps and division commanders. (The famous \"if practicable\" order from Lee to Richard S. Ewell below Cemetery Hill in the Battle of Gettysburg was verbally transmitted by Taylor.) He greeted all persons who came to see Lee, and usually decided whether they would be announced to the General. Taylor eventually attained a rank almost commensurate with his great staff responsibilities, being promoted to lieutenant colonel on December 12, 1863. Lee kept his staff to a minimum (certainly increasing pressure on Taylor), to keep as many trained officers in the field as possible. Apparently one of Lee’s tactics by the summer and autumn of 1864 was defensive – stay put, dig in, and release many of these men for service on the front. If the wagons aren’t moving, you don’t need wagoners - they can man pickets, dig rifle pits and build roads. Taylor achieved such status that he seems to have occasionally signed papers for Lee, and had clerks signing orders for him (by command of Lee). Taylor (and several other aides, especially Charles Marshall) accompanied Lee to Richmond after the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Taylor’s own wife of just over a week was also waiting for him there (Lee had allowed Taylor go to Richmond to marry Bettie Saunders on 2 April). On Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, Taylor and G.W. Custis Lee (Lee’s son) were photographed by Mathew Brady on the back porch of Lee’s Richmond home, 707 E. Franklin St., in the now-famous series of photos. This Order was issued to Major General Kershaw as Kershaw’s Division was in the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

George Moxley Sorrel (“Moxley”) was a bank clerk in Savannah when the war began. He left his job to enlist for the Confederate cause. He was commissioned into General James Longstreet’s staff, and was present at the first major battle of the war, Manassas. A few days later, he was appointed acting adjutant general of Longstreet’s division. October 31, 1864, he was promoted to Brig. Gen. and given command of a brigade in Mahone’s division, A.P. Hill’s corps. In one incident reported by Confederate Military History from Antietam/Sharpsburg, Longstreet and his staff came up on the Confederate center, which had been left with but a small regiment, the remainder sent to reinforce the left. There were two artillery, but the gunners were dead or wounded. Longstreet held the horses while his staff, primarily Sorrel and Latrobe, manned the guns, holding off the advancing Federals until reinforcements arrived, saving Lee’s army (and at least bringing the battle to a draw rather than a Confederate loss). Not mere paper-pushers, these guys! And Sorrel would go on to be a good field commander until the end of the war.

This very rare, original Civil War Manuscript Field Order is in very good condition. The Sheet has horizontal creases as folded and sent to Major General Kershaw. The manuscript text is somewhat light but easily readable and the sheet is clean and generally crisp with a couple of short edge tears at the fold ends.

The Letter came to us with a small collection of Civil War documents from and relating to Confederate Major General Joseph B. Kershaw issued by Lieutenant Generals James Longstreet and Robert E. Lee and written and signed by important Confederate States Army Staff Officers. All of the manuscript and the signature are unconditionally guaranteed to be original and written in the hand of a Confederate Staff Officer by Order of General Robert E. Lee.

A VERY rare and fascinating, original 1863 Autograph Letter / Field Communication / Field Order issued by Lieutenant General Robert E. Lee Commanding the Confederate States of America Army of Northern Virginia written and signed by Lieutenant Colonel Walter H Taylor (or a subordinate on his behalf) as Assistant Adjutant General Lee\'s Staff and a fantastic addition to any collection!!!

Major General Joseph B. Kershaw, CSA was a state representative in South Carolina in 1861 and was sent to the convention which decided South Carolina’s secession, although Kershaw, himself, was reportedly opposed to it. In February he was commissioned colonel of the 2nd SC Regiment, serving at Sullivan’s Island. Barely a week after South Carolina’s secession, Federal troops under Maj. Robert Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie on December 26, 1860, moving to the as-yet-incomplete, but stronger, Fort Sumter. From Fort Moultrie and other points around Charleston Harbor, shelling of Fort Sumter commenced on 12 April 1861. Fort Moultrie was one of the few points to take return fire from Sumter. Fort Sumter fell later the next day, and the war had begun. Kershaw was then sent to Virginia. He was engaged at Blackburn’s Ford and First Manassas.

Although he had a bit of military experience, he was not trained as a military man. Kershaw reportedly threw himself into learning everything about what is today called “military science.” The 2nd SC became known as one of the better trained Confederate units, and Kershaw one of the Army of Northern Virginia’s best officers. He was probably as close as any of the Generals came to the “gentleman-soldier” of southern myth, although it took a bit of time to grow into his position. (He appears to have gotten off on the “wrong foot” with Beauregard, for example. The two went their separate ways after Charleston Harbor.) Kershaw was savvy enough to pay attention to those who “knew the ropes.”

The following February (1862) he was commissioned Brigadier General, and given command of a brigade is Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He stayed with Lee’s forces through the Peninsula, Northern Virginia and Maryland Campaigns, and was engaged with Lee at Gettysburg the following year. He then transferred to the West with Longstreet’s Corps where he was part of the charge at Chickamauga that destroyed the Federal right wing. He returned to Virginia with Longstreet, was promoted to Major General and took command of a division in 1864 in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania C.H., Cold Harbor and Shenandoah Campaign. He was with Ewell after the evacuation of Richmond, during which he was captured three days before Lee surrendered. Other than those last few days, he was in the thick of the war from beginning to end.

The Document offered here was in Kershaw’s possession at that time. It is dated in 1864, when he took command of the division. Custis Lee, also captured at Sayler’s Creek, was immediately paroled. Inexplicably Kershaw was held for three months, as was Ewell.

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