Congressman James A. Garfield to Corydon E. Fuller, December 13, 1863

Washington, Dec. 13, 1863.

My Dear Corydon: — On my arrival here one week ago, I found yours of the 1st of November awaiting me. I am sorry it was not forwarded to me, but it lay here with fifty or sixty others.

I had expected to get here some time before the session began, to secure rooms and take a more active part in the organization of the House, but I was detained at home for the saddest of reasons. We buried our precious little “Trot” the day before I left home. I sat by her bedside for nearly two weeks, watching the little dear one in her terrible struggle for life.

We had at length reached a point where the fever was over, and we had hopes of her recovery, when the diphtheria set in, and we were compelled to sit still and see her die. We buried her on the third day of December, at the very hour she would have reached the end of her fifth month of her fourth year.

I have no words to tell you how dreary and desolate the world is since the light of her little life has gone out. It seems as if the fabric of my life were torn to atoms and scattered to the winds. I try to be cheerful, and look up through the darkness and see the face of our Father looking upon me in love, but it is very, very hard. I will try to be cheerful.

“Yet in these ears till hearing dies

One set, slow bell will seem to toll

The passing of the sweetest soul

That ever looked with human eyes.”

You must pardon me, dear Corydon, if I seem almost dead to life and all that belongs to it.

My bereavement made me still more want to go back to the army, but the President did not think it safe to risk a vote, and so I resigned the Major Generalship and took my seat.

You have seen how triumphantly we elected your friend Colfax. I talked with him of you, and he spoke of you in high terms.

I wish I knew of some way in which I could assist you to a position which would put you into better opportunities for work and usefulness. Tell me if you find any place where I can be of service to you.

Give my love to Mary. I wish she would write to poor Crete, and I wish you would, too. You must forgive this hurried note, for I have a great crush of work upon me just now.

With much love, I am, as ever,

Your own,

James.

SOURCE: Corydon Eustathius Fuller, Reminiscences of James A. Garfield: With Notes Preliminary and Collateral, p. 344-5