ALS signed “George Patton,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.25 x 6.75, West Point letterhead, January 24, 1909. Letter to his mother regarding his class trip to the Watervliet Arsenal, where large caliber cannons were manufactured. In part (spelling and grammar retained): “We had a hell of a trip yesterday up to Water Vliet Arsenal at Albany…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. 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…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. Beat[rice Ayer] is in Va. now but she is coming up here next Sunday—God willing.” In fine to very fine condition, with a mailing fold touching the first letter of his last name. Penned in the year he graduated from West Point, this exceptional letter demonstrates Patton’s early abilities as a military tactician and strategist. Patton would get his “war and a big one” within a few years as World War I broke out, in which he played a major role. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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