[Rarebooks] FS: Fine John Tyler LETTER to His Secretary of War on Disturbances at Harper's Ferry Armory

[Charles Agvent]

TYLER, John. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED. Washington DC, 30 March 1842. 
Two-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED "J Tyler," less than a year into his 
presidency, on both sides of a 4-3/4" x 7-1/4" sheet to his Secretary of 
War John Spencer [In 1843 he would become Secretary of the Treasury]. In 
full: "Major Craig should, in my view of it, have issued an order 
authorizing the workmen to return to their work-- and expressed the hope 
that in future all disturbances will cease. The addition might have been 
made-- that the Superintendent and govt. are activated solidly by the 
motive to protect and advance the public interest-- nor is it too late 
now to say-- that the order of the 28 does not apply to those heretofore 
employ'd-- but to such only as may be applicants in future. Such a 
course is best rely upon it-- Yr J Tyler." The letter likely refers to 
disturbances at the Harper's Ferry armory upon the replacement of the 
former civilian superintendent with ordnance officer Major Henry K. 
Craig. Many of the men employed there chartered a boat on the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Canal and proceeded to Washington City to see the president, 
John Tyler, and state to him their grievances. "Having reached 
Washington they obtained an audience of the president who received them 
in a style worthy of the head of a great nation and, what is more in the 
estimation of some people, a Virginia gentleman. Compliments were 
exchanged and the president gave each of them a cordial shake of the 
hand, an honor which was duly appreciated, for it is related that one of 
the delegation, in a burst of enthusiasm, reached out a hand of enormous 
proportions and dubious color to meet that of the president, at the same 
time exclaiming, 'Hullo, old fellow, give us your corn stealer.' This 
handsome compliment, no doubt, was very gratifying to the president, for 
he made them a speech in which he declared in the most emphatic manner, 
that he considered the working men as the bone and sinew of the land and 
its main dependence in war and in peace; that he loved them as such and 
that their interests should be his care. In this strain he continued for 
some time, but suddenly, he threw cold water on the hopes he had created 
by telling them that 'they must go home and hammer out their own 
salvation.' This figurative expression and the allusion to that emblem 
of vulcanic labor -- the hammer -- were not received with the admiration 
which their wit deserved, and it is said that many loud and deep curses 
were uttered by some sensitive and indiscreet piece workers, and that 
the august presence of 'Tyler too' had not the effect of awing the bold 
navigators into suitable respect for the head of the nation. They 
returned home wiser but hardly better men and, from that period dates 
the bitter opposition of many Harper's Ferry people to the military 
system of superintendency which continued until the final overthrow of 
that order of things in 1854" (Barry, Joseph: THE STRANGE STORY OF 
HARPER'S FERRY, 1903, pages 31-32).

John Tyler was the tenth president of the United States and the first 
vice president to succeed to the presidency upon the death of William 
Henry Harrison who died 31 days after taking office. He was elected to 
the Confederate House of Representatives in November 1861. When he died 
the following year, Jefferson Davis held a lavish funeral, draping a 
Confederate flag over Tyler's coffin. To this day, Tyler remains the 
only U.S. president not to be buried beneath the American flag. 
Amazingly, he has a grandson who is still alive. Later in 1842, John 
Spencer's son, 20-year-old Philip, a midshipman aboard USS Somers, was 
executed with two others for mutiny without a court-martial. Their 
deaths are one reason the U.S. Navy stopped training boys at sea and 
founded the United States Naval Academy. The event on USS Somers may be 
the only mutiny on a warship in US Navy history and was almost certainly 
a model for much of BILLY BUDD by Herman Melville, who was the first 
cousin of Lieutenant Guert Gansevoort, an officer aboard the ship. 
(#021482)        $2,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/021482/john-tyler/autograph-letter-signed

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