Vienna,
February 7, 1864.
Dear Duchess Of
Argyll: We get on very well in Vienna. We have an extremely pleasant
house with a large garden. Many of our colleagues are very kind and agreeable;
your ambassador most especially so — high-minded, honorable, sympathetic,
good-tempered, amiable. Everybody respects and loves him for his fine qualities
of mind and character. Lady Bloomfield is very charming and accomplished, and
has but one fault in the world: she has been away from us three or four months,
and we all miss her very much.
I have purposely avoided speaking of the one topic of which
my mind is always full, because when I once begin I can never stop, and I
become an intolerable bore.
I am glad you spoke of Colonel Shaw. His father and mother
are intimate friends of ours, and I have had a touching letter from Mr. Shaw
since his son's death. I knew the son, too, a beautiful, fair-haired youth,
with everything surrounding him to make life easy and gay. When I was at home
in 1861 I saw him in camp. He was in the same tent with one of my own nephews,
both being lieutenants in what has since become a very famous regiment — the
Massachusetts Second. I had the honor of presenting their colors to that
regiment, and saw them march out of Boston 1040 strong. Since that day they
have been in countless actions, some of the bloodiest of the war. A large
proportion of its officers, all of them young men of well-known Boston
families, have been killed or severely wounded; and in the last papers received
I read that the regiment, reduced to about two hundred, has returned on a few
weeks' furlough and to recruit its numbers, having reenlisted — like most of
the other regiments whose term expires this year — for three years longer, or
for the duration of the war. I believe that they would serve for twenty years
rather than that our glorious Republic should be destroyed. But be assured that
the government of the United States is firm as the mountains.
Young Robert Shaw is a noble type of the young American. Did
you see the poem to his memory in the January number of the
"Atlantic"? It is called "Memorise Positum," and is, I
think, very beautiful. The last verse is especially touching. It is by Russell
Lowell, one of our first poets, as you know. The allusion is to his two nephews
who were killed in Virginia. A third nephew (he has no sons), Colonel Lowell of
the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, is in active service in Meade's army. He
lately married a sister of Colonel Shaw, and she is with him now. Shaw fought
all through the campaigns of Virginia, in the Massachusetts Second, until he
took the command of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth (colored). His was a
beautiful life and a beautiful death.
I shall say no more. My wife and daughters join me in
sincerest remembrances and best wishes for the duke and yourself and all your
household. I beg to remain, dear Duchess of Argyll,
Most truly yours,
J. L. M.
I wish you would whisper to the duke that he owes me a
letter, and that if he should ever find time to write I will write a short
letter in return.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, Volume III, p. 4-6
No comments:
Post a Comment