Portland, September 2, 1860.
My Dear Pike:
I have been absent all the week, and on my return find your letter of the 29th.
My opinions coincide somewhat with yours, though I can hardly believe . . . so
much of a scoundrel as to wish your district lost. The State Committee have
not, I am informed, sent one dollar to this district. They offered us
Burlingame for one evening, and the chairman of our District Committee says we
shall have to pay him. When B. was here on his way to Belfast, he said that he
had no engagements after that week, and agreed to speak at several places in
this vicinity the week following. I urged him to do so, at the request of
committees. Soon after, Stevens and Blaine loaded me down with letters and
telegrams, complaining that he was taken out of their hands, and that he was
needed in your district, saying, moreover, that you and Fred complained of
neglect, and that the district was in danger. This was the first intimation I
had of any danger in the First, or that it had not been taken care of, and I
immediately wrote and telegraphed my willingness and advice that he should go
to you at once, as we could get along without him. He is with you, and, I hope,
is doing good service.
We are having a terrible fight here, and until Blaine wrote
me about Burlingame, I supposed, as did we all, that our district was the
battleground, and that yours was all right. My brother Sam writes that the
Third is safe beyond a peradventure. He has fought his own battle, with the
exception of a few speeches from outsiders.
Yours always truly,
W. P. Fessenden.
J. S. Pike, Esq.
SOURCE: James Shepherd Pike, First Blows of the
Civil War: The Ten Years of Preliminary Conflict in the United States from 1850
to 1860, p. 525
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