Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/115

Rh Cavalry was organized, until early in 1861. The only years, then, to which the date of The Duty Letter, April 5, 1852, can be changed, with any possibility of satisfying the two conditions stated above, are 1856 and 1860. Let us examine these years separately.

On November 21, 1855, Lieutenant-Colonel Lee, who had been absent from his regiment, at Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley, as a member of a Court-Martial, records in his Memorandum Book, that he arrived at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri (where the Second Cavalry had rendezvoused), and "Found no orders for my future movements. The Regiment gone to Texas." Here, then, was Lieutenant-Colonel Lee's chance, according to the first two sentences of The Duty Letter, to hasten to Texas, join his "fine old regiment," and see that the men "are properly taken care of." But on November 24, 1855, the Memorandum Book contains this entry: "Left St. Louis for Texas to join my regiment. Shipped my baggage to New Orleans. Decided to take Arlington on my way." (Italics mine.)

To Texas, from St. Louis, by way of Arlington, was certainly a roundabout route; and does not exhibit such haste on the part of Lieutenant-Colonel Lee to join his regiment, and see that the men were properly taken care of, as The Duty Letter