Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/131

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2. Among the letters left at Arlington, and since returned to the Lee family, there are two which refer to the topics of The Duty Letter, and which may have been used by the forger.

(1). Letter dated Baltimore, May 4, 1851, from General Lee to Custis Lee, then a cadet at West Point. This letter is printed on pages 71-74, of Dr. J. William Jones' second book on General Lee, published in 1906, entitled "Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee." The time at which this letter was first printed, and other circumstances, indicate that it is one of those left at Arlington, and afterwards recovered by the Lee family, but the fact cannot be fully established by external evidence. But the internal evidence points strongly to its use by the forger, as supplying the topics—Frankness and Duty—discussed in The Duty Letter.