"I AM VERY SORRY YOU ARE SICK AND ONLY CONSOLE MYSELF THAT IT GIVES ME AN EXCUSE TO BOTHER YOU WITH A HOWITZER… PLEASE TAKE OUT THE PAGE WITH THE FACT OF MY UTTER WORTHLESSNESS IN FOOTBALL PRINTED ON IT": LENGTHY PATTON AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED TO HIS FUTURE WIFE BEATRICE AYER
PATTON, George S. Autograph letter signed. West Point, New York: April 23, 1907. One leaf folded into four pages, 5-1/4 by 6-1/2 inches, on "West Point" stationery. $6000.
Lengthy autograph letter signed by West Point cadet George Patton to his wife-to-be, Beatrice Ayer, at a time when they are both convalescing from whooping cough. Patton mentions the West Point Academy yearbook, The Howitzer, a legal dispute between the mother of a fellow cadet and the Academy that ultimately involved Secretary of War Taft, and an upcoming expedition to Jamestown, Virginia.
The letter reads, in full: "Dear Beatrice; Say but you are in the very devil of a fix but if writing can help you and as you cant talk I should think it might prevent explosion why please write for there is nothing I like better than to get your letters and I have had the whooping cough. Truly though I am very sorry you are sick and only console myself that it gives me an excuse to bother you with a Howitzer [the West Point Academy yearbook]. Now if it is in the way please don't hesitate to throw it away for I know that college year books are not very interesting to those outside the college. Also please take out the page with the fact of my utter worthless in football printed on it. I hope I have cured my attack of "Wilderesque" any way I have tried for some thing must be done when one gets an absence reading a book on Egyptian Architecture written in French.
"Tell that boy that there are much easier ways of going to —- than by enlisting and I should advise him not to do it. If he has any pull he should try for a civil appointment in the artillery for just now that is the best. I fear Mr Carroll will not come back he is too lazy.
"That is a fine name but how do you like 'Yellow Jacket' you see it means something else something that stings too. 'If you don't like it say so.'
"It has been very cold here also but there have been no fires and no Willies and the only exciting thing has been the fight between Mrs. A. and the Com. And oh yes we beat Yale at baseball but I was out running and did not see it. We won't go to Jamestown until the first of June when we are going by boat and will probably live on her while down there. I hope we will for there is little fun camping in the mud with white trousers. They will probably make a rigiment of us in June so there will be some new kind of makes and no one can tell what he will be but I will try not to be 'busted.' And now please don't Whoop any more not even at this letter. Wednesday, George Patton. [added in pencil] 23 April 1907."
"Patton spent one year at Virginia Military Institute before entering the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1904. At the academy, Patton had special difficulty with mathematics and did not graduate until 1909, 46th in a class of 103. One year after graduating he married Beatrice Ayer; the couple had three children" (ANB). Patton and Ayer (1886-1953) met as teenagers on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California in 1902, when their families were vacationing. Ayer was the daughter of prominent Boston industrialist Frederick Ayer.
The letter mentions an ongoing battle between Commandant of Cadets Robert Lee Howze and Mrs. Elizabeth Fairfax Ayres, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Charles G. Ayres and the mother of Cadet Fairfax Ayres. Mrs. Ayres had written several letters to newspapers accusing the Academy of persecuting her son. Ultimately, Secretary of War William Howard Taft issued an order forbidding Mrs. Ayres from visiting the Academy, and she threatened to sue the officers at West Point and Secretary Taft for damages. Patton also mentions an upcoming military exposition in Jamestown, Virginia.
Fine condition.