Grant ALS Near Victory, Intercepts Supplies for "people of the rebellion" to Quicken War's End! JSA

Ulysses Grant
City Point, VA, February 8, 1865
Grant ALS Near Victory, Intercepts Supplies for "people of the rebellion" to Quicken War's End! JSA COA
ALS

ULYSSES S. GRANT, Autograph Letter Signed, to Shipley, February 8, 1865, City Point, Virginia. 1 p., 7.375" x 8.5"; matted with 5.25" x 8" engraving of Grant, ca. 1879, to total size of 16" x 10.875". Expected folds; light toning.

In this brief letter, likely transmitted by telegraph, Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant instructs Brigadier General George F. Shepley at Norfolk to prevent David O. Laws from landing his steamer with supplies “for the use of people in rebellion” in exchange for cotton. Laws sought authority from Grant to go up the Chowan River in northern North Carolina. Blockade runners who successfully entered the Albemarle Sound could proceed up the Chowan River to Weldon, North Carolina, where supplies could be sent 60 miles north to Petersburg on the Petersburg Railroad.

In the final stages of the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, General Grant wanted to cut off all supplies that might aid the Confederates. Critics estimated that 10,000 pounds of meat, sugar, coffee, and salt flowed daily from Union-controlled Norfolk into General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army. The Union Army and Navy focused in early 1865 on cutting off all access to Petersburg from ports in North Carolina, like Weldon and Wilmington. On February 9, the day after Grant sent this message, by order of Major General Edward O. C. Ord, Shepley was relieved of command as the commander of the District of Eastern Virginia and military governor of Norfolk, in part because of an ongoing investigation into military corruption and the illegal buying of cotton from the Confederates.

Complete Transcription
Sent
Head Quarters Armies of the United States,
City Point, Va. Febry 8th 1865.
Brig. Gen. Shepley, Norfolk, Va.
A Mr. Laws has been here seeking authority to go through to the Chowan[.] He has a steamer at Norfolk loaded with goods for the use of people in rebellion and expected to bring back cotton. You will please see that neither he, his boat or cargo go through.
U. S. Grant / Lt. Gen.

Historical Background
By February 1865, City Point, Virginia, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers, was the headquarters for General Ulysses S. Grant in overseeing the Siege of Petersburg. It also served as an advance supply depot and temporarily one of the busiest shipping ports in the world. Steamers from Washington, Annapolis, and Baltimore brought rations, clothing, and reinforcements, and returned carrying wounded soldiers and newly freed prisoners of war.

On July 2, 1864, Congress authorized Treasury agents to buy cotton and other products from residents of the insurrectionary states or from speculators who went into those states to procure them. Speculators, like the “Mr. Laws” mentioned in this letter, had to secure a formal contract or license from a designated Treasury agent, such as Hanson A. Risley, stationed at Norfolk, to engage in the trade. However, they also had to carry a safe-conduct pass from the regional military commander detailing the cargo he would exchange for southern cotton. In the boundary area of the Chowan River in North Carolina, divided between Confederate-held counties to the west and Union-occupied counties to the east, military and naval authorities frequently accused speculators of abusing their licenses to smuggle contraband supplies to Confederate forces. The Union Navy frequently disregarded Treasury licenses and sometimes seized speculators’ steamers and cargoes on the Chowan River.

On November 17, 1864, Treasury Agent Hanson A. Risley made a contract with David O. Laws for 10,000 bales of cotton from Virginia and North Carolina, to be delivered on or before February 1, 1865. Nearly two weeks later, on November 30, Risley made a second or revised contract with Laws for 10,000 bales of cotton from Virginia and North Carolina, to be delivered by July 1, 1865. Risley asked for “safe conduct” for Laws and his means of transportation on the Roanoke and Chowan Rivers and their tributaries.

Laws and his partner Michael McMahon owned the steamer Cotton Plant, which was seized by the U.S. Navy on the Roanoke River in North Carolina. The District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania approved the condemnation of the steamer as a prize of war, but Laws and McMahon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1871 reversed the lower court’s ruling because the naval force seized the vessel on inland waters and the property could not be regarded as a maritime prize according to an act of Congress of July 2, 1864.

In 1868, the United States Supreme Court heard a case (United States v. Lane) on appeal involving a speculator named George W. Lane of Baltimore, who entered into a contract in December 1865 with Hanson A. Risley, the Treasury agent at Norfolk, Virginia, to retrieve cotton from the Chowan River in North Carolina. Lane navigated into enemy lines, traded his cargo for cotton, and began his return voyage to Norfolk. Union naval authorities in North Carolina and again in Virginia seized his vessel and cargo and sent it to Washington for a ruling. The Supreme Court held that Lane’s actions amounted to illegal trading with the enemy and violated the spirit and letter of the July 1864 law.

George Foster Shepley (1819-1878) was born in Maine, then part of Massachusetts. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1837 and read law at Harvard. He practiced law in Bangor (1839-1844) and Portland (1844-1861), Maine. In 1844, he married Lucy Ann Hayes, with whom he had five children. From 1848 to 1849, he served as United States Attorney for the District of Maine. He lost the position when Zachary Taylor was elected president; President Franklin Pierce reappointed him in 1853, and he held the position until 1861. During the Civil War, he was commissioned as colonel of the 12th Maine Volunteer Infantry and was assigned to the Department of the Gulf under the command of General Benjamin Butler. He was promoted to brigadier general in July 1862 and served as acting mayor of New Orleans (May-July 1862), Military Governor of Louisiana (July 1862-March 1864), commander of the District of Eastern Virginia (June 1864-April 1865), and Military Governor of Richmond, Virginia (April-July 1865). After the war, he returned to Maine to continue his law practice. He was offered a position on the United States Supreme Court but declined. Shepley served as Judge of the U.S. Circuit Courts for the First Circuit from 1869 to 1878.

David O. Laws (1827-1875) was born in Delaware and became a fruit dealer and grocer in Baltimore. In the 1850s, he married Emily H. Ricketts (1828-1891), and they had at least four children. In November 1864, he contracted with the Treasury Department to deliver 10,000 bales of cotton from Virginia and North Carolina by February 1, 1865. As early as May 1865, Laws was advertising in a Richmond newspaper the sale of a cargo of food and household goods to be sold from his steamer Emma from Baltimore. By 1870, Laws was a corn dealer in Baltimore.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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7.375" x 8.5"