AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED BY A FORMER LEESBURG ATTORNEY AND VIRGINIA MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES, FROM HIS NEW HOME IN PLATTE CITY, MISSOURI, 27 FEBRUARY 1861, TO M. HARRISON, ESQ., OF LEESBURG, CONCERNING THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY AND IMPENDING CIVIL WAR

Platte City, 1861. Folio leaf, folded to [4] pp. Each page 7-3/4" x 9-3/4." Final leaf blank. Entirely in neat ink manuscript and signed with a flourish at the end of the letter. Very Good. [Words in capital letters are underlined in the original.]

Find-a-Grave describes the author as follows: "Algernon Tebbs was a successful lawyer in Leesburg, Virginia and Platte City, Missouri. He lived in Leesburg, Virginia and on the nearby Sugarland Run farm until 1854 when he moved with his family to Platte County, Missouri. During the turbulent years of the Civil War he went with his son Clement to Texas while his wife Julia returned to Virginia. After (truncated) the war ended Algernon returned to Platte County, Missouri where he engaged in various business interests."
Tebbs begins his letter with a discussion of problems concerning a sale of his land, and the assistance to be rendered by Harrison. The rest of the letter, comprising two-thirds of page two and the remainder of page three [four lines], expresses Tebbs's insightful and intelligent musings on the condition of the nation:
"The country is in a bad state. Missouri will not secede. The Southern States will not return during Lincoln's admin., nor afterwards until a new party, not sectional, gets into power and the Constitution is so amended as to give the South equality in the territories, now remaining, & hereafter to be acquired by ABSOLUTE provision: and if the policy is pursued of holding the Forts & enforcing the collection of Revenue in the seceded states, then, they are gone forever & civil war will most likely follow. There is but one way of bringing back the seceded States: & that is to let them alone & SUSPEND the operation of the Federal laws in those states, until the constitution can be acceptably amended. The people of the North will sustain a fair compromise amendment, if the vile politicians will ever suffer the question to come before them. The unfortunate notion of holding the Forts and collecting revenue, is fatal. It must be abandoned. The Seceding States will never submit to it. If this policy should be persevered in, which seems to be the common notion between right & wrong in the premises, then all hope is gone and we might as well prepare for a terrible civil war. Yours very truly, A. Sidney Tebbs. (Inventory #: 39662)