Wabash, Port Royal, February 23, 1862.
Your great kindness has made a deep impression on me. It has
been no trait of mine to “court honor,” and I can truly say visions of distinction
formed no part or lot in my motives of action. To serve my country, do my duty,
and meet the expectations of those who had given me the opportunity, have been
the incentives uppermost in my mind. Yet I believe this temperament and such
impulses are in no way inconsistent with feelings of profound gratitude and
pride at the high distinction which has been awarded me, and which I owe to
your kind instrumentality.
I am off to-morrow with a large division of my squadron to
complete my work on the lower coast, and, if God is with us, in some three
weeks I hope to hold everything by an inside or outside blockade from Cape
Canaveral to Georgetown, South Carolina. Our hearts have been gladdened by the
news from the North. Porter came in to-day on his way to the Gulf, and gave us
the account of the surrender of Fort Donelson. I have never permitted any
invidious feelings of rivalry with our military brethren, but we are thrilled
in our esprit de corps at the deeds of the Navy, and I am sure they must
be agreeable to you, as offering some return to that disinterested sympathy,
guidance, and support, which you have extended to that branch of the public
service since you took your seat in the councils of the nation.
We hear fine accounts of the Northwestern army, and Captain
Rodgers had a letter from some officer in the West, who spoke of the impression
made by the Iowa regiments. I thought this item, traveling back to you from
South Carolina, would not be unacceptable.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 169-70
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