MAJOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK - MANUSCRIPT LETTER WITH AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED 09/22/1880 - HFSID 30326

WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK
During the 1880 Presidential campaign, he thanks a South Carolina woman for a palmetto hat.
Manuscript Letter with Autograph Note signed: "Winfield Scott Hancock", 2 pages (integral leaf), 5½x8½. Governor's Island, New York Harbor, 1880 September 22. To Miss S. Pinckney Magwood, Charleston, South Carolina, in full: "Your note of September 6th has been received and the Hat made of Palmetto, gathered from your ancestral home, braided and served by you, which you were pleased to send me. I appreciate and thank you for the compliment. The skill displayed by you in its manufacture is exceedingly creditable, and I only regret that the lateness of the season will not permit me to enjoy the comfort of wearing the hat for the present. I am very truly and respectfully yours". Hancock's ANS on integral leaf: "You must pardon me for using Secretary". Winfield Scott Hancock (1824-1886), a highly successful Union Corps commander during the Civil War and a hero of the Battle of Gettysburg (1863), was the Democratic Party's candidate for President in 1880, losing very narrowly to James A. Garfield by a margin of fewer than 40,000 votes out of 9 million cast. (The Electoral Vote margin was wider, but far from a landslide: 214-155.) Hancock was Commanding General of the U.S. Army's Department of the East, headquartered on Governor's Island, from 1877 until his death. The Presidential election was only 6 weeks away when Hancock wrote this letter. With federal troops withdrawn from southern states, and Reconstruction governments overturned, Hancock, popular in that region for his for his role in the postwar occupation, was assured of South Carolina's support in the pending election. Two horizontal and one vertical fold. Lightly creased. Lightly toned. Otherwise, fine condition.