NEW YORK, April 3, 1854.
Dear CRITTENDEN,—Herewith I inclose you a copy of General Smith's letter that you supposed would soon reach me. I have sent the original to Washington, with my indorsement, notwithstanding the refusal of the Secretary of War in the case of Major Crittenden, which came to hand since I last wrote to you. Whether the secretary will yield to the second application I think very doubtful. Lieutenant Bonaparte now applies for the first time, and as the French minister will privately support his request, it may give success to both applications. The Nebraska bill stops all business in the House, and the Maine liquor law (with the governor's veto) operates the same way at Albany upon the Kentucky resolutions introduced there. All signs fail in a drought, and I am in a perpetual drought, by being thrown (to borrow a metaphor from Bunyan) into that "slough of despond," the committee of the whole House on the state of the Union. With Mrs. Crittenden within-doors, and Letcher next-door neighbor, I suppose you to be beyond the reach of cares and vexations. Happy man! and may you long continue so. Just received a letter from Coombs, spoiling to get his money, and disgusted with Washington. Your immediate representative (Breckinridge) and mine (Cutting) have agreed to let each other die in the regular course of nature. I heartily rejoice. B. always votes for my bill, and Cutting will, at the next trial, change to the same side. I am called to dinner; never have a good one without thinking of you.
SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, pp. 106-7
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