SIGNIFICANT LOT OF TWO LETTERS BY FITZ JOHN PORTER

ONE, WRITTEN IN UTAH IN 1858, IS A HISTORIC FRONTIER ASSESSMENT ENDORSED BY GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT & GENERAL IRVINC MCDOWELL

THE OTHER OFFERS INSIGHTFUL POST-CIVIL WAR COMMENTARY

Two autograph letters written by Fitz John Porter (1822–1901), the first from Camp Scott, Utah Territory, 13 February 1858, to an unnamed major. 4 pages, 4to. The second, incomplete, is addressed to an unidentified recipient, though likely to the same major. N.p., n.d. 2 pages, 4to.

A distinguished graduate of both Phillips Exeter Academy and West Point, Porter entered the Mexican-American War as a second lieutenant and served with marked gallantry, receiving brevet promotions for meritorious conduct and ultimately attaining the rank of major. After the war, he returned to West Point, where he taught cavalry and artillery until 1855. He was then posted to Fort Leavenworth and, after being brevetted captain, served as chief of staff to Albert Sidney Johnston during the Utah War of 1857–1858.

In the first letter, Porter promises to send maps and charts and offers a vivid assessment of the territory, warning in unsparing terms of its hardships and dangers: “Fort Laramie is a miserable hole, and all such places purchased from companies are worthless....wood and grass being generally destroyed within 20 or 30 miles...This route is worn out for military stations. The establishments on the road are...harbors for robbers, murderers, Mormons, and all other scoundrels including deserters - and all of them seem to regard the United States as a bird full of rich feathers to be plucked.”

That letter bears a striking red-ink endorsement by General Winfield Scott (1786–1866), further marked “Private” and forwarded to the War Department, with Scott describing Porter as “a capital soldier...gallant & intelligent & frank.” A second endorsement, penciled in the left margin by Irvin McDowell, concerns the maps Porter had mentioned.

The second letter, seemingly a later addendum or at least written in reference to the first, is neither addressed nor signed. In it, Porter offers warm assessments of several military colleagues, including General Johnston, whom he calls “a splendid soldier & friend & patriot,” as well as George H. Thomas and Winfield Scott, the latter described as having been “a warm friend” during the Mexican-American War. Particularly notable is Porter’s remark that Thomas was “one of the ablest and unexcelled generals of our civil war,” suggesting that this second letter was written after the conflict. Most intriguing of all is Porter’s retrospective comment on the Utah expedition itself: “Some of these days you will get evidence or assurance worthy of belief, that the southern war was in contemplation when Gen. Johnston was sent to Utah & that a large army was sent there to be out of the way of defense.”

An unusually rich glimpse of Porter before the Civil War controversies that would later define his public career: first as an energetic young regular officer on frontier duty, then as a reflective postwar observer commenting on Johnston, Thomas, Scott, and the broader strategic meaning of the Utah campaign.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]