[ Autographs ] GEORGE S. PATTON (1885 - 1945) "Old Blood and Guts" was one of the finest tank commanders in history, rolling his forces through Tunisia, Sicily, France and Germany until halted at the Rhine. An absolutely astounding Patton letter in which the 19 year old cadetmakes racist comments, predicts his own future appointment as general,and laments the end of the "beauty of war"! The clearly-penned letter is written to his father ("Dear Papa") on United States Military Academy letterhead, 6pp. 8vo., West Point, June 26, 1904. Patton had only weeks earlier graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was at West Point for orientation and preparation for his first year at the Academy. He writes, in small part: "....This place is pretty much like VMI. We have reveille at 6:30, breakfast at 7, at 8:35 we have setting up exercises until 9:30...drill is conducted with implements of which a cliffdweller would have been ashamed...to get rust off a gun, you must rub the rust with a soft stick. To get dirt out of a plate you rub it with a rag;' all the methods are on a par with this...the other day a bedbug bit me on the face...sent me to thehospital because he thought the bites were poison oak or chicken pox. They kept me in the hospital for two days...I think I will get a pet bedbug. One of the Cadet officers who has been over us is an Hawaiian and he looks like a nigger. The northern men made a great fuss about being under a nigger; truly they are logical in their opinions of Southerners...I'm very much disheartened by the wonderful efficiency of the modern rifle and there is now talk of them making a gun which fires 20 shots a second. I don't exactly see how war is to be carried on against such obstacles but if they make a gun which shoots 100 shots a second I would try to learn how to beat them and still be a great General but when I am, I would burn the man who invented rapid fire guns and by so doing ruined the beauty of war. Still this story of a rapid fire gun may be entirely a myth. I hope it is for if it is war is still feasible and there will be more wars. I am feeling fine.." Folds, otherwise near fine. Nothing more needs be said...E8,000-10, 000