Washington, D. C.
June 20, 1864.
MY DEAR NICOLAY:
I went blundering through the country after leaving you,
missing my connections and buying tickets until I landed in Baltimore without a
cent; had to borrow money of the Eutaw to pay for my dinner and hack. Got home
tired, dusty and disgusted.
The Tycoon thinks small beer of Rosey's mare's nest. Too
small, I rather think. But let 'em work! Val[landigham] 's sudden Avatar rather
startles the Cop[perhead]s here away. Billy Morrison asks me how much we gave Fernandiwud
for importing him.
Society is nil here. The Lorings go to-morrow — last
lingerers. We mingle our tears and exchange locks of hair to-night in
Corcoran's Row, —some half hundred of us.
I went last night to a Sacred Concert of profane music at Ford's. Young Kretchmar and old Kretchpar were running it. — Hermanns and Habelman
both sang;—and they kin if anybody kin. The Tycoon and I occupied private box,
and both of us carried on a hefty flirtation with the Monk Girls in the flies.
Madame is in the North. The President has gone to-day to
visit Grant. I am all alone in the White pest-house. The ghosts of twenty
thousand drowned cats come in nights through the south windows. I shall shake
my buttons off with the ague before you get back. . . . .
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 198-9; see Michael Burlingame, Editor, At Lincoln’s side: John Hay’s Civil War
Correspondence and Selected Writings, p. 85 for the complete letter.
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