George William Curtis to John J. Pinkerton, July 9, 1861

North Shore, Richmond Co., N. Y.,

July 9, '61.

My Dear Pinkerton, — I have been long meaning to say how d’ ye do, and now your note is most welcome. No, I stayed at home, resisting several very tempting calls, nor shall I be lured to any college halls this year.

I have two brothers at the war, and my wife has one. My neighbor and friend, Theodore Winthrop, died, at Great Bethel, as he had lived. Many other warm friends are in arms, and I hold myself ready when the call comes. I envy no other age. I believe with all my heart in the cause, and in Abe Lincoln. His message is the most truly American message ever delivered. Think upon what a millennial year we have fallen when the President of the United States declares officially that this government is founded upon the rights of man! Wonderfully acute, simple, sagacious, and of antique honesty! I can forgive the jokes and the big hands, and the inability to make bows. Some of us who doubted were wrong. This people is not rotten. What the young men dream, the old men shall see. Well, I will not discuss Seward just now. I do not believe him to be a coward or traitor. Chase said to a friend's friend of mine last week, “Mr. Seward stands by my strongest measures.”

I should like greatly to sit with you and the P. M. and the D. A., and talk the night away, even if the newspaper did find us out and tattle! But I can only shake your hand and theirs, which I do with all my heart.

My wife sends her kind remembrance. We have a little girl, born on the day of the Proclamation.

Yours always,

George William Curtis.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 147-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, April 20, 1861

20th April, 1861.

Anna and the baby are perfectly well. Her brother Bob and my brother Sam marched yesterday with their regiment, the 7th, both the Winthrops, Philip Schuyler, and the flower of the youth of the city.

This day in New York has been beyond description, and remember, if we lose Washington to-night or to-morrow, as we probably shall, we have taken New York. The grand hope of this rebellion has been the armed and moneyed support of New York, and New York is wild for the flag and the country, and our bitterest foes of yesterday are in good faith our nearest friends. The meeting to-day was a city in council. The statue of Washington held in its right hand the flagstaff and flag of Sumter. The only cry is, “Give us arms!” and this before a drop of New York blood has been shed. What will it be after?

I think of the Massachusetts boys dead. “Send them home tenderly,” says your governor. Yes, “tenderly, tenderly; but for every hair of their bright young heads brought low, God, by our right arms, shall enter into judgment with traitors!”

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 145