This collection consists of two items related to Raleigh E. Colston. The first item is a letter of recommendation (dated July 7, 1866) written by General Robert E. Lee on behalf of Colston. The second item is a volume (appoximately 100 pages) titled "Report on the Northern and Central Kordofan" (Cairo: printing Office of the General Staff, 1878). Attached to this volume are photographs of Colston wearing his Egyptian Army uniform (circa 1878) and of Major H. G. Prout, Egyptian Army, and other reports (1876-1878).
Raleigh Edward Colston was born in 1825 in Paris, France. He graduated from VMI in 1846. From 1846 to 1861 he was a Professor of French at VMI. During the Civil War he was a Brigadier General with the Confederate States of America. From 1873-1879 Colston was a Colonel in the Egyptain Army, and from 1882 to 1894 he was a clerk with the War Department. He died in 1896 in Richmond, Virginia.
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Raleigh E. Colston papers, 1866-1878. MS 0386. VMI Archives, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia.