April 29th. — I was never half so comfortable in
Washington, without you, as I am now. I am in one of the best, most genteel, quiet,
cultivated families I have ever known in Washington; my apartments are two
nice, airy, neat, and convenient rooms, and I have the only breakfasts I have
ever eaten at any boarding-house in Washington. My colleague Wilson, and
Henderson, of Missouri, dine with me. Fessenden will adopt the same mode of
life, and begin to dine with us on Monday, and Clark and Morrill are to be
admitted to our club during the week. Of course, we have good dinners. So much
for my creature comforts.
I have just received a long letter from Dr. Jonathan
Blanchard, formerly of Galesburg, the old Orthodox apostle at Galesburg, in
which he compliments me in very undeserved terms, and concludes by saying that
all of my merits are to be attributed to your instructions and example. I
believe that the general impression is, that I am of myself a most perverse
mortal, toned and tempered down by you into a reasonably civilized piece of
humanity.
We have no news here. Every one is incensed against Banks,
and demands his supersedure. Our disaster in Louisiana was much greater than
was reported. There will be no battle here for some weeks, probably; in the
mean time a vast force is being concentrated. Last Monday more than forty
thousand men marched through town, six thousand negroes, on their way
southward. The universal opinion was that the negroes made much the best
appearance, and there seemed to be the best of feeling between them and the
white soldiers.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 260-1
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