Autograph letter signed by Huestis P. Cook — signing "Huestis Cook" and "H. P. Cook" — the Richmond photographer who was the son and studio successor of the celebrated Confederate-era photographer George S. Cook. Written from Richmond, Virginia, to a correspondent in Nashville, Tennessee, the letter concerns the identification of wartime photographic portraits of Confederate Brigadier General Maxcy Gregg, and references the Cook studio's holdings of original Civil War negatives.

Two pages of pictorial Richmond letterhead, each leaf approximately 8 x 11 in., penned in ink in a clear, legible hand and dated at the head. The illustrated letterhead carries halftone vignettes of Richmond landmarks: Post Office & Custom House, St. John's Church, the Private Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument on Libby Hill, and St. Paul's Church on the first leaf; and a Birdseye View from Manchester (including Belle Isle and the James River), Hollywood Cemetery, the Union Theological Seminary buildings, and Houdon's Washington in the Capitol on the second.

Cook replies to Mr. Merritt of Nashville, who had inquired about a photograph of "J. Gregg." Cook reports that he contacted Mrs. Cook, whose mother — Mrs. Latimer, nee Susan Maxey — was a near relative of Gen. Maxcy Gregg and a favorite of his in girlhood, with a sister who lived with her after the war. By that account, only two portraits of Maxcy Gregg were known — one made during the Mexican War and one during the Civil War, both showing him in uniform and hat — and nothing was known of a "J. Gregg" pictured in a cloak and bareheaded. On a second page added afterward, Cook writes that he has since located a large Civil War-era glass negative labeled in faded ink "J. Gregg" — the same image as a smaller print but showing the cloak in full down to the hip — a fine negative that would yield a clear, sharp 8 x 10 print. He speculates on the name ("Gregg is more of a Virginia name. Gregg of S.C.") and notes he is enclosing a copy of a tintype of "Gen. Ballou, C.S.A., Richd 1865 in ruins." A revealing first-hand glimpse of the post-war traffic in original Confederate portrait images and of the Cook studio's role as custodian of irreplaceable wartime negatives.

George S. Cook settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and during the Civil War became one of the foremost Confederate photographers, famous for recording the gradual destruction of Charleston and Fort Sumter. Relocating to Richmond in 1880, he acquired the negatives and businesses of numerous retiring Richmond photographers, assembling the most complete photographic record of the city held in a single studio. His younger son Huestis entered the business in the 1880s and took over the Richmond gallery after George's death on November 27, 1902. Following Huestis's own death in 1951, his widow sold the surviving negatives and prints to the Valentine (Richmond History Center), where the Cook Collection is preserved today. The recipient, Merritt, maintained a long-standing relationship with Cook and acquired original prints of various Confederates from him. The Cook collection referenced in this letter is cited on p. 44 of Donald A. Hopkins, Robert E. Lee in War and Peace (El Dorado Hills, CA, 2013).

Accompanied by the original mailing cover, postmarked Richmond, Va., February 16, 1950, franked with a 3-cent Jefferson, addressed to the recipient at Nashville 4, Tennessee, and bearing Cook's return address on the flap ("H. P. C., 5505 Bewdley Rd., Richmond Va.").

Even toning throughout. Horizontal mailing folds. Chipping with small loss along the upper edge of the first leaf, touching one letterhead vignette. Old paper-tape repairs at the fold lines on the versos. Cover with edge tears at top. Fully legible.  [ss][ph:L]

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