Raynors HCA 2015-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/3/2015
WATSON, Peter Hill (1819-1885) was born in Yorkshire and emigrated to Canada with his family in 1830. He came to the US in the early 1840s, settling in Rockford, Illinois, and set up a law practice that was short-lived, as he removed to Washington, DC in 1845 to focus on patent law. It was in Washington that he worked in the same office building as Edwin M. Stanton, and the two became acquainted. Shortly after Fort Sumter, Stanton appointed his friend to be his Assistant Secretary of war. Watson served in that position until the end of the war, often serving as Acting Secretary when Stanton was away from Washington. Autograph Letter “P.H. Watson”, pencil, Harper’s ferry, May 26, 1862, to Hon. E. M. Stanton, 1pp., VG. In large part, “I have set all the carpenters at work to plank the Bridge so that teams and men and if need be artillery can cross as well as cars - real work will be accomplished in two or three hours rendering a separation of Balls Bluff impossible ...”
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