Robert E. Lee and Traveller
Cowan’s Auctions (cowanauctions.com)
An iconic image earns big
The Artifact
A quarter plate tintype of Robert E. Lee and his warhorse Traveller
Condition
The plate is flawless, with excellent clarity and contrast and no scratches or oxidation.
Details
In the summer of 1866—little more than a year after he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, an act that effectively brought an end to the Civil War—Robert E. Lee and his wife visited the mineral spring baths in Rockbridge County, Virginia, hoping the waters might alleviate their various physical ailments, including her rheumatism. While there, Lee, who the previous October had been named president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), agreed to have his image taken by Lynchburg photographer Adam H. Plecker and his employee, Michael Miley. The men made at least four images (including the tintype shown here) of Lee and his famed warhorse Traveller, a grey gelding Lee purchased in 1862 for $200. Plecker took the images—which were of varying quality, since, as he later noted, “the flies were very bad, so we had trouble holding … [Traveller] still long enough”—back to his studio, where he enhanced them using oils and watercolors before enlarging them. These altered versions of Plecker and Miley’s original images were later widely circulated as photo postcards. Lee would die in October 1870, weeks after he had suffered a stroke, at age 63. Traveller would live until the following year, when he was put down after developing tetanus from stepping on a nail.
Quotable
In a letter he wrote in December 1866, Lee described Traveller to his wife’s cousin, Martha “Markie” Custis Williams, an artist who was working on a portrait of the horse, as follows: “If I was an artist like you, I would draw a true picture of Traveller; representing his fine proportions, muscular figure, deep chest, short back, strong haunches, flat legs, small head, broad forehead, delicate ears, quick eye, small feet, and black mane and tail. Such a picture would inspire a poet, whose genius could then depict his worth, and describe his endurance of toil, hunger, thirst, heat and cold; and the dangers and suffering through which he has passed. He could dilate upon his sagacity and affection, and his invariable response to every wish of his rider. He might even imagine his thoughts through the long night-marches and days of the battle through which he has passed. But I am no artist Markie, and can therefore only say he is a Confederate grey.”
Value
$52,875 (price realized at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2018). “This is an exceedingly rare and important image in flawless condition, and perhaps the last original photograph of Lee in private hands,” noted Wes Cowan, founder and owner of Cowan’s Auctions, at the time of the sale.
Related topics: animals, Robert E. Lee
