Beschreibung:

HOWE, ROBERT, 1732-1796, Brigadier General, Continental Army. . Autograph letter signed ("R Howe"), to an unidentified recipient, Charleston, [South Carolina], February 1779. 3 1/2 pages, 4to, 237 x 180mm. (9 1/4 x 7 in.), on light blue paper, some show-through of ink, otherwise in fine condition. RUMORS OF MILITARY REVERSES. A letter written in great haste, passing on reports of military setbacks suffered by the British: "...A report prevails here that...Minorca & Gibralter have been demanded by the Spaniards... ...but these reports, however much I wish them true, I am not sanguine enough to believe; but this I firmly do believe that...our own efforts will accomplish for us everything one ought honorably to expect. I feel for your situation, my dear sir, every thing which a heart truly disposed to love you can possibly feel, with every desire to serve your country and at a time as really critical not to be furnished with the means or supported with that vigor you expected...must be a cruel wound...both as a soldier and as a patriot...Would to God my power was equal to my inclination to serve you, and your triumph should soon be complete..." Howe, a wealthy South Carolina plantation owner, became quite a radical and was denounced by the colonial Governor in 1775 for training militiamen. His plantation was sacked and burned by Cornwallis in 1776; he held various commands, at Charleston and Savannah, later in the northern theater and at West Point. Rare.