LEXINGTON, Nov. 23, 1850.
MY DEAR SIR,—More than a year ago our friend Garnett Duncan made
application to the President and to the Secretary at War for a cadet's warrant
at West Point for my oldest son. He did this spontaneously as an act of
personal regard, and perhaps as some expression of his sense of things of other
days. I had other friends whose influence might have aided him; but in the same
spirit that actuated him, I told him I would do nothing; so that if he
succeeded, he should have all the gratitude of the lad and all the pleasure of
the good deed. He failed. But the President and the Secretary both promised to
put the lad's name on the list, and held out strong hopes, if not a certain
assurance, of his appointment a year from that time, to wit, now.
Now, my dear sir, if this appointment can be had, I shall be very glad;
my boy will be gratified in the strongest and almost the earliest wish of his
heart, and I trust the country may be gainer thereby in the end. The lad is now
a little past sixteen years of age; he is a member of the Sophomore class at
Danville, and is of robust constitution, fine talents, and earnest, firm, and
elevated nature. It is to gratify him in a strong, nay, a vehement, passion
that I desire this thing. For myself I never did, never will, solicit anything
from any government. The ancestors of this lad, paternal and maternal, have
done the State some service. You know all about all I could with propriety say.
If there is any impropriety in my thus addressing you, I pray you to excuse
it; if there is none, and this thing can be accomplished, it will be only
another proof of your goodness and another ground of the grateful and
affectionate friendship of Yours ever,
SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence
and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 384
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