Description:

USS AJAX PAYMASTER IS REPRIMANDED FOR DRUNKENNESS
An interesting manuscript letter, 2pp. 4to., Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 1871, a contemporary copy of an official communication from Secretary of the Navy George M. Robeson to Enos E. Lewis, paymaster of the monitor USS AJAX, then at Key West. Robeson chides Lewis for misconduct, in full: ‘The Department has received from Commodore I. F. Green, a letter dated the 8th Ultimo; transmitting a report from 2nd Asst. Engineer T. W. Fitch, charging you with misconduct at a Coffee-house in Havana, while you were in that city on leave of absence, on the 1st of December last. In the explanation from you, which accompanied the report, you positively and emphatically deny the charge of intoxication, and appeal to the officers who were with you at the time and the Department is disposed to think that your conduct, on the occasion referred to, may have been censurable, but not in such a degree as to require investigation by a Court Martial. But in taking this lenient view of the first offense of a young officer, it is my duty to admonish you of the consequence should you again subject yourself to charges of a similar nature. The credit of the service requires a strict propriety of deportment on the part of Officers while in a foreign port; and undue indulgence in intoxicating liquors, at any time or place, can only unfit an officer for his duties, and lead to his final expulsion in disgrace from the service.' The letter is stamped at top left as being received aboard the flagship of the South Atlantic Squadron, the screw sloop USS CONGRESS, with a lieutenant endorsing it as received. A Captain A. G. Clay endorses the letter as forwarded to Lewis at bottom right. Shows original mailing folds, trimmed at the left edge and with a mounting strip thereto on the verso of the second page, with faint toning and stains, otherwise in very good condition.

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March 27, 2026 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

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