“This singular favour of Providence”

In 1890 the Pennsylvania Magazine published the transcription of a letter from Gen. George Washington, supplied by John Blair Linn of Bellefonte.

This letter was to James Potter, a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania militia. It enclosed the good news from Saratoga, especially welcome since the British army had just taken Philadelphia and beaten the Continentals at Germantown.

Washington wrote:

This singular favour of Providence is to be received with thankfulness and the happy moment which Heaven has pointed out for the firm establishment of American Liberty ought to be embraced with becoming spirit—it is incumbent upon every man of influence in his country to prevail upon the militia to take the field with that energy which the present crisis evidently demands. I have no doubt of your exerting yourself in this way—In the post which you now occupy you may render the most important services by cutting off the enemies convoys and communications with their Fleet, for this purpose you shall strain every nerve—

That letter never went into a scholarly repository, remaining in private hands. When the editors of the George Washington Papers included it, they had to rely on the Pennsylvania Magazine publication.

Washington’s letter to Potter has now surfaced. Most of it is in the handwriting of aide de camp John Laurens, with the commander’s signature at the end. I see a few small differences between its text and the published transcription, but nothing to change the letter’s meaning.

The Raab Collection is offering the document for sale with a price of $275,000.

ArtNet reported that this letter “It is the only wartime document in which the President invoked ‘Heaven’.” That’s not true. But that word is part of the selling strategy since the Raab Collection says: “We are not aware of any letter of Washington referencing Heaven having publicly sold.”