^Lot 163 Samuel Colt

Inventor of the Colt revolver and founder of the Colt Firearms Company (1814–1862). ALS signed “Saml. Colt,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, April 9, 1861. Colt hastily dictates orders to his secretary. In part: “I have your note of yesterday with enclosures form Col Cooper. Should you receive the package of letters & Papers returned to me From New Orleans I want you to send them to me at 240 Broadway by the first express & mail the Express receipt for them to me at the St. Nicholas Hotel. I may leave here for the South before returning to Hartford hence it will be necessary for you to have your payroll & other accounts…with the usual checks drawn for my signature. You will probably have to bring down the check books to me here for signature. I will telegraph to you if you must come in the mean time you must telegraph to me on receipt of this if you can be ready to come here tomorrow, Wednesday night, or when you can be ready to come if you are telegraphed to do so. If you come here you should calculate to stop a sufficient time to make the necessary examinations at the office & fix the business so as to have no mistakes thereafter.” On the second page, Colt adds a postscript, signed “S. C.” Colt writes: “I may telegraph to you to bring down Mr. McFarlen with you & I wish you now send him word that I shall probably want him to go to Cincinnati very soon & to let me know if he can do so.” In very good condition, with partial separations along central horizontal fold and hinge, scattered toning and show-through from text on opposite sides, a couple of archival reinforcements to folds and small tears, and a couple of light creases. At the beginning of the war Colt would sell arms to both the North and South, eventually being labeled a Southern sympathizer.