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LS signed “J. A. Garfield,” two pages both sides, 7.5 x 9.75, July 1, 1875. Letter to editor Horace E. Scudder, in part: "I have been reading Charles Leland's recent book, published by your house on the English Gipsies and their Language, and concluding that he has given this matter more personal attention than any of our American authors, I am anxious to obtain his opinion in regard to an alleged discovery, which is to me the most singular of anything I have heard in philology for many a year.
I was recently at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where I visited the Headquarters of the Military Department of the Missouri, and while there met with Colonel Miles of the Regular Army, who commanded a recent successful expedition against the Indians. In the course of his campaign, an old Cheyenne Indian woman came into camp. General Miles ordered her to be fed and well treated in hopes that he might get some intelligence from her in regard to the movements of the enemy. He happened to have no interpreter with him at the time, but a young teamster, hearing her talk stepped forward and entered into conversation with her and told General Miles he could converse with her easily. A long conversation was carried on between General Miles and this Indian woman, by the aid of this young teamster. When the young man was asked whether he had ever lived among the Cheyennes, he answered in the negative, and said that he and this woman were talking in the Gipsy language, among whom he lived in the Grisons of Switzerland, that he was the son of a merchant and had been sent by his father into the Grisons to purchase cattle; that in the course of his absence he had spent several months among the Gipsies of that locality and had learned their language. He came to this country less than a year ago, and, not finding business, enlisted in the Sixth Regular Cavalry, but after serving for a few months was discharged from the fact of his being a minor, on the application of the Swiss Consul, resident in Washington.
General Pope is now causing a thorough investigation to be made in the case by sending the young man with well known interpreters to go with the Indian Reservation and thoroughly test the alleged relation between the Romany language and that of the Cheyenne Indians. This young man further states that he understands many of the words used by the Comanches and the Kiowas. He says he fully understands and without trouble the language of the Cheyenne. General Pope does not desire that the facts of this case shall be made public, until a more thorough examination shall be made, but I write this with the hope that I may learn from Mr. Leland, whether, in the course of his study he has ever compared the Romany Language with any of our Indian Dialects…Would it not be strange if we should find one of our wild Indian Tribes speaking a Sanscrit language substantially that of these European Gipsies." In fine condition.
The Western Americana auction of Jochen Zeitz.
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