1803 HENRY DEARBORN, War Department Letter, hand written and signed by Dearborn

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1803 HENRY DEARBORN, War Department Letter, hand written and signed by Dearborn ~ Guaranteed 100% Authentic ~ A rare historical document! This letter, dated January 7th, 1803 from the War Department, is hand written and hand signed by Henry Dearborn himself. Some letters you will find on eBay are signed by his secretary, but this one is not. The letter reads: "Sir, Ensign Joseph Dorr has been appointed Commander of the Public Schooner Senator Tracy, and you will be pleased to govern yourself accordingly. I am respetively yours, H. Dearborn " This letter is from t he Elaine Madlener Collection, as can be seen by the stamp in the lower left corner of the letter. Madlener was a manuscript and autograph collector. Condition: The paper has yellowed and there is some wear to the edges. Please see the pho tos for additional details and the mos t accurate description of its conditi on. Approximate Dimensions: 8-1/8" x 8-3/4" Henry Dearborn (February 23, 1751 – June 6, 1829) was an American physician, a statesman and a veteran of both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. When fighting in the American Revolutionary War began, he organized and led a local militia troop of 60 men to Boston where he fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill as a captain in Colonel John Stark’s First New Hampshire Regiment. He then volunteered to serve under Benedict Arnold during the difficult American expedition to Quebec. His journal is an important record for that campaign. He was captured on December 31, 1775, during the Battle of Quebec and detained for a year. He was released on parole in May 1776, but he was not exchanged until March 1777. After fighting at Ticonderoga, Freeman's Farm and Saratoga, Dearborn joined George Washington's main army at Valley Forge as a lieutenant colonel where he spent the winter of 1777–1778. He fought at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, and in 1779, he accompanied Major General John Sullivan on the Sullivan Expedition against the Iroquois in upstate New York. During the winter of 1778-1779 he was encamped at what is now Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut. Dearborn joined Washington’s staff in 1781 as deputy quartermaster general with the rank of colonel, and was present when Cornwallis surrendered after the Battle of Yorktown. In June 1783, he received his discharge from the army and settled in Gardiner, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, where he was made a brigadier general in the militia in 1787 and major general in 1789, He was appointed as the first U.S. marshal for the District of Maine under the new Constitution by President Washington. He represented this district as a Democratic-Republican in the Third and Fourth Congresses (1793–1797). In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Secretary of War, a post he held for eight years until March 7, 1809. During his tenure, he helped plan the removal of Indians beyond the Mississippi River. He was appointed collector of the port of Boston by President James Madison in 1809, a position he held until January 27, 1812, when he was appointed senior major general in the United States Army in command of the northeast sector from the Niagara River to the New England coast. During the War of 1812, while Dearborn prepared plans for simultaneous assaults on Montreal, Kingston, Fort Niagara, and Amherstburg, the execution was imperfect. Some scholars believe that he did not move quickly enough to provide sufficient troops to defend Detroit. William Hull, without firing a shot, surrendered the city to British General Isaac Brock. Although Dearborn had minor successes at the capture of York (now Toronto) on April 27, 1813, and at the capture of Fort George on May 27, 1813, his command was, for the most part, ineffective. He was recalled from the frontier on July 6, 1813, and reassigned to an administrative command in New York City. Dearborn was honorably discharged from the army on June 15, 1815. President James Madison nominated Dear... read more

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