Burlington, March 27, 1863.
I feel the difficult and responsible position in which you
are placed, and the great questions that are to be settled by the issue. The
country feels them. There are inconsiderate and senseless men who complain that
an attack has not been earlier made; but they know nothing of the true posture
of affairs, and their opinions would be worthless if they did. Every one is
satisfied that you will attack at the time your judgment shall decide to be the
best time, and everybody whose opinion is worth anything is satisfied
that your opinion as to when that best time arrives will be correct. In
a word, it gratifies me to be able to assure you that the people of the whole
country have entire confidence in your capacity and your patriotism, and those
who have watched your career do not suffer themselves for one moment to doubt
your complete success. It may be that the conflict may be over before this
reaches you. I trust it may, and that this may be accepted as my
congratulations upon the result. If otherwise, if it reaches you on the eve of
battle, then in God's name, in the name of the country, in behalf of your
friends, in the name of a good government and of our common humanity, I bid you
“good cheer.” May God in his wisdom and mercy protect, defend, and give
you success! No grander spectacle can be presented to the human vision than a
patriotic, Christian man going forth to battle in defense of a wise, paternal,
and humane government.
I regret as much as you can the failure of Congress to
provide means to assist the States of Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, to
secure emancipation. I do not doubt that freedom will soon be universal in
those States. Just such bills would have been a sort of culmination and
rounding off of the acts of the late Congress that would have reflected glory
upon it and upon the country. The Thirty-seventh Congress, much maligned as all
assemblies of a legislative character have been in revolutionary times,
composed to a very great extent of men who had not been trained to statesmanship
— elected in a time of profound peace upon a multitude of issues, but no one of
them in anticipation of a war — that Congress, in my conviction, has
immortalized itself, and stands second only to the first Continental Congress.
Still it might, it ought to have done more.
My policy at the last session in regard to naval legislation
was “hands off.” All sorts of attempts were made to overturn the legislation of
the preceding session, but we in some manner or other defeated all such
efforts.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 235-6
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