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104 loyalty to Lee required loyalty to The Duty Letter. In the words of Dr. Gamaliel Bradford, Jr., author of Lee the American, an appreciative and discriminating psychography of General Lee: "A document so widely known as this (referring to The Duty Letter), and, as I understand it, studied and quoted constantly by thousands, is certainly worthy of being examined with the closest scrutiny. It is as if Washington's Farewell Address, or Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, were brought into dispute."

The Duty Letter was published, as has been stated above, in the New York Sun on November 26, 1864. On December 2, 1864, it was published in the Richmond (Va.) Whig, precisely as printed in the Sun, but without being credited to the Sun, or to any other paper. And on December 16, 1864 (just two weeks after its appearance in the Whig), The Duty Letter was published in the Richmond (Va.) Sentinel, with credit to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And now comes a dramatic denouement in the history of The Duty Letter. The Sentinel, a semi-weekly publication, had printed the letter, with high praise, in its issue of Friday,