Monday, January 12, 2015

James Freeman Clarke to E. C. C., June 29, 1864

Washington, June 29,1864.

I came to this city last Friday, preached in the Capitol on Sunday, and have been seeing a number of persons since then. I have had one or two good talks with Mr. Chase about public affairs; also with Charles Sumner. As I am locum tenens of Chaplain Channing, I have the entree of the Senate and House as I please, so that I can go in and sit on one of the sofas behind the members, and talk to those I know as they pass me. Our Mr. Boutwell made a very good speech a few days since. Mr. Sumner has succeeded, within the past week, in getting through Congress laws to repeal the laws authorizing a coast-wise slave-trade; to repeal the fugitive slave laws; to allow colored people to testify before the United States courts; and to establish a Freedman's Bureau.

To-day I am going to the front as one of a Sanitary Relief Corps. I go to Fortress Monroe, City Point, — the lines, — and Norfolk; stay three or four days, and return to Baltimore on Monday. I hope to see and hear a good deal in these three days. I wish I had you with me. We have never traveled much together, and I should enjoy having you by me.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 289-90

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