WASHINGTON, D. C.,
January 26, 1864.
My Dear JUDGE:
Mr. Goodrich sent me your kind note, and it was a real delight to me to see
your handwriting once more. God grant that it may foretoken your complete
restoration to health.
Among the gratifications which have more than compensated
the vexation and chagrin I have had to endure here, I prized few more highly
than that which your appreciation of my work and your prompt award to me of
your esteem and friendship gave me. Would that your chief had had the wisdom to
see and the courage to act as you would have had him! How much might have been
spared to our country!
What I did to aid you when you first came from Ohio, I
should have done for any one charged with the same mission. I simply did my
duty. How generously you overpaid me by your confidence and good-will will pass
from memory only when memory retains no traces.
If it is too much trouble for you to write yourself, will
you oblige me by having some friend write me how you are? You remember that I
proposed to you when in New York to take a Southern voyage on one of the
revenue cutters. If your health will now permit you to go round to Fernandina,
I shall be very glad to have you avail yourself of her accommodations, which
are really good, while she cruises for the coming two or three months on the
Florida and South Carolina coasts. Can't you do so?
I am terribly worked and had no time to talk with Mr.
Goodrich about his plan, but referred him to a friend in the Senate. As to
political affairs and prospects, it is absolutely impossible for me to keep
myself posted. Some friends are sanguine that my name will receive favorable
consideration from the people in connection with the Presidency. I tell them
that I can take no part in anything they may propose to do, except by trying to
merit confidence where I am.
Faithfully your
friend,
S. P. CHASE.
Hon. Thomas M. Key,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
SOURCE: Robert Bruce Warden, An Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon P. Chase,
p. 563-4
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