20th April, 1861.
Anna and the baby
are perfectly well. Her brother Bob and my brother Sam marched yesterday with
their regiment, the 7th, both the Winthrops, Philip Schuyler, and the flower of
the youth of the city.
This day in New
York has been beyond description, and remember, if we lose Washington to-night
or to-morrow, as we probably shall, we have taken New York. The grand
hope of this rebellion has been the armed and moneyed support of New York, and
New York is wild for the flag and the country, and our bitterest foes of
yesterday are in good faith our nearest friends. The meeting to-day was a city
in council. The statue of Washington held in its right hand the flagstaff and
flag of Sumter. The only cry is, “Give us arms!” and this before a drop of New
York blood has been shed. What will it be after?
I think of the
Massachusetts boys dead. “Send them home tenderly,” says your governor. Yes, “tenderly,
tenderly; but for every hair of their bright young heads brought low, God, by
our right arms, shall enter into judgment with traitors!”
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
145
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