Autograph letter signed, four pages (two sheets - both sides), 8 x 10,5 inch, Fort Myer, Virginia, [n.d., but ca. 1916 while stationed at the fort], `Headquarters Fifteenth U. S. Cavalry` stationery, to his mother - detailing how he and a friend rescued a woman*, written and signed in dark ink "George S. Patton Jr.", with intersecting letter folds, and very mild creasing - in fine to very fine condition. Accompanied by a Letter of Authenticity from PSA/DNA, and a photograph of Patton in uniform (with a dog next to his Cadillac).
In parts:
"[...] James Agar and myself were driving along the road when we saw a crowd of people and a bunch of men trying to get a woman into the back of a wagon. She was yelling and kicking so we jumped out when they saw us. Two of them ran away and the other two dropping her, jumped into the wagon and beat it as fast as the horse could go. We chased them and turning the machine across them forced them to stop. I was standing in the back of the machine with my pistol in my hand, but out of sight below the back of the car, when they were forced to stop the man driving started to lift a shotgun he had beside him, but I covered him quicker than he did, and he threw up his hands. The second man standing in the back of the wagon had a pistol in his hand, but he thought I was pointing at him too, and he dropped his weapon. We made them get out and we searched them. Each had almost 50 extra cartridges. We went back to where the girl was, she was yelling and very much excited. We quieted her and took the two...to prison where I think they will stay for two years, I hope they do. [...]"
* Fascinatingly, this event was altered but repeated in the 1970 movie 'Patton' as a German officer gives a report to his superiors on Patton's personality. Patton would command the United States Fifteenth Army for just over two months after the war, dying from a car accident in his Cadillac in December 1945. Paton`s final resting place is in Luxembourg American Cemetery in Luxembourg. This came to be per his request to "be buried with his men."
