Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Jeremiah G. Anderson to His Brother in Iowa, Late September 1859

Our mining company will consist of between twenty-five and thirty well equipped with tools. You can tell Uncle Dan it will be impossible for me to visit him before next spring. If my life is spared, I will be tired of work by that time, and I shall visit my relatives and friends in Iowa, if I can get leave of absence. At present, I am bound by all that is honorable to continue in the course. We go in to win, at all hazards. So if you should hear of a failure, it will be after a desperate struggle, and loss of capital on both sides. But that is the last of our thoughts. Everything seems to work to our hands, and victory will surely perch upon our banner. The old man has had this operation in view for twenty years, and last winter was just a hint and trial of what could be done. This is not a large place,2 but a precious one to Uncle Sam, as he has a great many tools here. I expect (when I start again travelling) to start at this place and go through the State of Virginia and on south, just as circumstances require; mining and prospecting, and carrying the ore with us. I suppose this is the last letter I shall write before there is something in the wind. Whether I shall have a chance of sending letters then I do not know, but when I have an opportunity, I shall improve it. But if you don't get any from me, don't take it for granted that I am gone up till you know it to be so. I consider my life about as safe in one place as another.
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2 Haper’s Ferry.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 545

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