Burlington, July 19, 1865.
Your letter leads me to think that you may possibly be
inclined to come West, though I am quite skeptical on the subject. I do hope
you will come; I think you ought to come, not for your own pleasure, or the
pleasure of your friends alone, but as a leading public man you ought to see
this country for yourself. I am only a few hours' ride from Chicago, but in a
far more quiet, respectable, moral, healthy, comfortable place. I cannot
promise you the luxuries of a commercial metropolis on the seacoast, but I will
feed you on grapes if you are here in September, and intoxicate you with their
pure juice. I have between seven hundred and eight hundred vines loaded down
with most promising grapes, though we have much wet weather, which is not
propitious.
Of course, I always give a hearty support to the
Administration, as in duty bound, but we will reserve our quarrel about the
Navy Department, the Administration, and Charles Sumner, until you come here. I
prefer to fight you in my own barn-yard. Mrs. Grimes says she shall never
forgive you, if you do not come to see us, and spend at least two weeks with
us.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 280
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