RARE \"Paymaster\" Multi-Signed Document Dated 1887 For Sale

Up for sale a VERY RARE! "Paymaster" Multi-Signed Document Dated 1887. Signers are; William Henry Fitzthugh Lee, William Hunt and William Woodhull.

ES-5955

William Henry Fitzhugh

Lee (May 31, 1837 – October

15, 1891), known as Rooney Lee (often spelled "Roony" among

friends and family) or W.H.F. Lee, was the second son of General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis. He was a

planter, a Confederate cavalry General in the American Civil War, and

later a Congressman

from Virginia.  Lee

was born at Arlington House

in Arlington, Virginia, and

named for William Henry Fitzhugh, his mother's uncle. At an early age, his

father began to call him Rooney; what prompted him to use this nickname is not

known, but it stuck as a way to differentiate him from his cousin Fitzhugh Lee.

Rooney

Lee attended Harvard University, where

he befriended Henry Adams, who wrote about his

relationship with Lee in chapter four of his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams.

Lee followed in his father's footsteps after graduation, entering the United States Army in 1857

as a second lieutenant. He

served with the 6th U.S. Infantry under Albert Sidney Johnston,

and participated in the Utah War against the Mormons. In 1859, he resigned from the U.S. Army to operate

his White House Plantation, on

the south shore of the Pamunkey River, in New Kent County, Virginia.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Lee was commissioned as a captain in the Confederate

Army cavalry and was soon promoted to major. He initially served as a cavalry

commander for Brig. Gen. William Loring in the mountains of western Virginia during his

father's Western Virginia Campaign.

Loring's forces were transferred to the lower Shenandoah Valley and the command

of Stonewall Jackson in late

1861, and occupied the town of Romney in early 1862. Lee

was soon after assigned to the command of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was leading the cavalry forces for Joseph E. Johnston's Army

of Northern Virginia, in the Peninsula Campaign. After

joining Stuart, Rooney Lee's regiment participated in Stuart's first

ride-around the Union army, as well as the subsequent Seven Days Battles around

Richmond. During this time, Rooney's nearby White House plantation was burned

to the ground, and his son Robert died of typhoid fever.

William Henry Hunt (June 12, 1823 – February 27, 1884)

was the 29th United States

Secretary of the Navy, Minister to the Russian Empire and a Judge of the Court of Claims. Born

on June 12, 1823, in Charleston, South Carolina,Hunt

attended Yale University and Yale Law School, then read law with Theodore Hunt and Randell Hunt in New Orleans, Louisiana. He entered private practice in

New Orleans from 1844 to 1878. He served as a Colonel in the Confederate States Army in

1862. He was an Acting Professor of Civil Law for the University of Louisiana

(now Tulane University) in

1866. He was Attorney General of Louisiana

from 1876 to 1877.

William Woodhall was the Paymaster at the Navy Yard on

League Island, Pa.