WASHINGTON, January
24, 1862.
MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 22d only reached me this evening.
The facts you mention were new to me, but there is too much reason to fear they
are true. But that matter will, I think, be corrected very speedily.
You can not tell how much obligation I feel myself under for
your kindness. Every man who wishes the country to pass through this trying
hour should stand on watch, and aid me. Bad passions and little passions and
mean passions gather around and hem in the great movements that should deliver
this nation.
Two days ago I wrote you a long letter — a three pager — expressing
my thanks for your admirable article of the 21st, stating my position and
purposes; and in that letter I mentioned some of the circumstances of my
unexpected appointment. But, interrupted before it was completed, I will not
inflict, or afflict, you with it.
I know the task that is before us — I say us, because
the Tribune has its mission as plainly as I have mine, and they tend to the
same end. But I am not in the smallest degree dismayed or disheartened. By
God's blessing we shall prevail. I feel a deep, earnest feeling growing
up around me. We have no jokes or trivialities, but all with whom I act show
that they are now in dead earnest.
I know you will rejoice to know this.
As soon as I can get the machinery of the office working,
the rats cleared out, and the rat holes stopped we shall move. This army
has got to fight or run away; and while men are striving nobly in the West, the
champagne and oysters on the Potomac must be stopped. But patience for a short
while only is all I ask, if you and others like you will rally around me.
Yours truly,
EDWIN M. STANTON.
C. A. DANA, Esq.
SOURCE: Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, p.
4-5
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