Executive Mansion,
Washington, Aug. 27,
1862.
MY DEAR SIR:
Where is your scalp? If anybody believes you don't wish you
were at home, he can get a pretty lively bet out of me. I write this letter
firing into the air. If it hits you, well. It will not hurt so much as a
Yancton’s rifle. If in God's good Providence your long locks adorn the lodge of
an aboriginal warrior and the festive tomtom is made of your stretched hide, I
will not grudge the time thus spent, for auld lang syne. In fancy's eye I often
behold you the centre and ornament of a wildwood circle, delighting the
untutored children of the forest with Tuscan melodies. But by the rivers of
Babylon you refuse to yield to dalliance — yea, you weep when you remember
Washington whose magnificent distances are nevermore for you.
Washington is not at the present speaking an alluring
village. Everybody is out of town and nobody cares for nobody that is here. One
exception tres charmante which is French for devilish tidy. Miss Census Kennedy
is here with a pretty cousin from Baltimore which Ellicott S—— is quite spooney
about her while I am languidly appreciative.
Grover’s Theatre re-opens next Saturday and Dahlgren
breathes again. Some pretty women are engaged, to whom I am promised
introductions. There is also a new Club House established in the city, to which
I have sometimes gone to satisfy the ragings of famine. I think you will
patronize it extensively when you come back. I ride on horseback mornings. I
ride the off horse. He has grown so rampagious by being never driven (I have no
time to drive) that no one else whom I can find can ride him. Stoddard, Boutwell
and Leutze ride sometimes the near horse.
I am yours,
[JOHN HAY.]
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 68-70; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln
and the Civil War: in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 44; Michael
Burlingame, Editor, At Lincoln’s Side:
John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings, p. 25.
