WEEKS AFTER FORT SUMTER, VIRGINIA GOVERNOR JOHN LETCHER COMMISSIONS ROBERT E. LEE’S BROTHER SIDNEY A CAPTAIN IN THE NAVY OF VIRGINIA

JOHN LETCHER (1813-1884).  Letcher was a lawyer and Congressman, and the Governor of Virginia during the Civil War. 

DS. 1pg. 9 ¾” x 8”. May 2, 1861. Virginia.  A partly printed commission signed “John Letcher” as Virginia Governor.  Just weeks after Fort Sumter, Letcher commissioned Sidney Smith Lee, the older brother of Robert E. Lee, a Captain in the Navy of Virginia.  The document states “To S.S. Lee Greeting: Know You, That from special trust and confidence reposed in your fidelity, courage and good conduct, our GOVERNOR, in pursuance of the authority vested in him by the Constitution and Laws of this Commonwealth, doth commission you a Captain in the NAVY OF VIRGINIA, to rank as such from the 23^rd day of April 1861.”  It is co-signed by George W. Munford as the Virginia Secretary.  Sidney Lee entered the Navy at age eightteen and fought in the Mexican War and went with Perry to Japan in 1853.  He commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard and was commandant at the United States Naval Academy.  He resigned his Navy commission at the start of the Civil War and became a captain in the Confederate Navy.  He commanded the Norfolk Navy Yard.  The document has an intact, fresh green seal, dark writing and a few faint folds.  There is light staining, including purple marks, to the top margin.  A search of RareBookHub shows no similar Navy of Virginia commissions selling since 1985.  A most unusual Confederate document.