[spelling is original]
Fort Ripley, Mariland
April 18, 1863
Dear Mother
I received your letter to night and was glad to hear from you and to hear that you are all well. I am tuff and harty as a buck. I have not hearn from the boys for a long time. I wrote to them some time ago but have not got one yet, but I am looking for one every night. I wish that the boyes was here with me for we are in a better place than they are. Continue reading
Executive Mansion
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greely:
Dear Sir
I have just read yours of the 19th address to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. Continue reading
May 21st, 1861, Elmira, N.Y.
Dear Father & Mother,
Your letters have both been received. I was much grieved at the sad tone of both. Of course we all deprecate war. But since the question of our existence as a nation seems to hang upon a thread, and in case a dissolution takes place war is inevitable. I say let it come when we are best prepared and when we have the national prestige and resources to back us…. What is our government good for if it cannot maintain itself. If the people are to rule in any locality they must do it by majorities. And if it those majorities are to be successfully set a defiance by [?] then the experiment of self-government is at an end. I say we have a greater cause for which to battle now than did our revolutionary sires. They fought against taxation without representation. We fight for the doctrine of self-government.
Gazette665 