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Robert E. Rodes

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,500.00 USD
Robert E. Rodes

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Auction Date:2014 Feb 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
War-dated ALS signed “R. E. Rodes,” one page both sides, 7 x 8.75, August 13, 1863. Letter to William M. Blackford, in part: “Your favor of the 8th was received day before yesterday…next day I got Dr. Mitchell the Chief Surgeon of the Div: and quite an able physician to examine Eugene’s legs...His only fear is that Eugene will consent to having operations performed upon the veins implicated, a step which the Dr. decidedly offers in such cases. From what Dr. Mitchell tells me I hope Eugene can go as in his present position without detriment to his health. Nothing of interest transpiring here. I know nothing at least. As for the next grand battle, I think we will force it on and hence that it will be fought at the other side of the Rappahannock. Who knows? There is no indication of the intention to attack another part of either army so far as I know.”

In lengthy postscript on the reverse, initialed “R.E.R.,” Rodes continues: “The stories you hear about the desertions are exaggerated I imagine. The North Carolinians are deserting and so are the Virginians but neither to a greater extent than they did last spring whilst we were at Fdksburg [sic], except in one Div. wherein it seems the Presn’s proclamation causes some 100 or more to leave. The evil is not going on to an alarming extent I think. Nor to an extent which is not perfectly natural under the system adopted by her powers of pardoning all men who are condemned to be shot and finally releasing all deserters unconditionally. We are all in hopes that this last proclamation is the immediate forerunner of the rule with the strong hand.”

In an effort to encourage desertion from the Confederate Army, Lincoln developed an enticing policy in the summer of 1863; allowing Confederate deserters who swore an oath of allegiance not only to return to their homes—or start fresh in the North or on the western frontier, if their homes lay within Confederate-controlled areas—but also to receive compensation for any equipment they brought with them, a great number of Galvanized Yankees (or reconstructed rebels) began to take shape. Contrary to the reports of widespread desertion, however, Confederate General Robert Rodes assures army officer and civil engineer W. W. Blackford, then serving in Lynchburg, that the stories are exaggerated. With the exception of “one Div. wherein it seems the Presn’s procalamation causes some 100 or more to leave,” he shrugs it off as a “perfectly natural” part of the war. An interesting letter regarding one of the biggest struggles for both sides in the Civil War, written just months after Rodes’s unimpressive performance at Gettysburg.