Civil War-dated autograph telegram in pencil, signed “G. B. McClellan, Maj. Gnl.,” one page, 7.25 x 3.75, August 24 [1862], addressed from Falmouth, Virginia, and sent to Captain Charles G. Sawtelle, the acting quartermaster at Fort Monroe, in full: “How many wagons for Porters Corps have been shipped when the troops left & when. What progress in embarking Sumner?” Affixed to an 8 x 10 sheet and in fine condition.
This telegram message was handwritten five days before the Second Battle of Bull Run where General Fitz John Porter’s V Corps was routed by combined troops under Generals Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet. The men of General Edwin Vose Sumner’s II Corps arrived on the last day of the battle, too late to have any effect on the outcome. Captain Sawtelle, who did disembark and forward troops and supplies to McClellan’s army in the field, was brevetted Brig. General at the close of the war and 1896 became Quarter Master General of the U.S. Army. A highly appealing and unusual example given that the majority of McClellan's handwritten telegrams from the field are characteristically cryptic and signed only with his first initial, ‘G.’ The presence of the large ‘B’ on the page infers that McClellan grabbed this paper to use in a moment of haste.
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