GUEST: It's a letter from Robert E. Lee to my great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Minnigerode, who was the rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond during the war.
APPRAISER: When he was in Richmond, was he Confederate? Did he fight in the war, or he just...
GUEST: Oh, no, no, he was too old to fight. He had actually been in Williamsburg originally. He came from Germany. He's actually credited with doing the first Christmas tree indoors in Williamsburg, and they celebrate that tradition. Robert E. Lee was an Episcopalian, so they'd known each other for quite a while in Richmond.
APPRAISER: What you have here is a letter of Robert E. Lee. One of the nice things about the letter is it's fully in his hand. It's done in 1864. Obviously Lee must have communicated to your many-great-grandfathers that they needed help, they needed money, but they also had a lot of wounded soldiers. And this letter is thanking him for contributing money to help with amputees. The Confederacy, by 1864, was starting to lose a lot of people, were in very bad shape, and obviously your relative was very nice to contribute.
GUEST: My father took this down to the Museum of the Confederacy a few years ago to get it reframed and remounted. In it, Lee mentions a check that he's sending along as a contribution, and the people at the museum were able to check records and find a record of the contribution. They were impressed that Lee had actually made his own contribution too.
APPRAISER: Many times, in the heat of battle, and they were definitely in the heat of battle at that time, a lot of the letters tend to be very, very formal. They're to other commanders, other soldiers. This isn't an uplifting subject, but it is a personal letter. It does show the humanity of both of them. It definitely is a beautiful signature of Lee right here. The museum beautifully did it up for you. Robert E. Lee letters are good. Fully hand-written letters are better. And then, you know, talking about something that, again, gets into the suffering, the hardships of war, the amputations that the men have to be made to feel better, and then knowing that he responded on it...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: I would say a conservative retail-- in other words, if you were in a shop-- a conservative retail would be in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
GUEST: Oh, wow. Well, don't tell my family because I think they will never see it again. (laughter)
APPRAISER: Well...
GUEST: I'll probably spirit it away.
