Galena, April 19, 1S61.
Mr. F. Dent—
Dear Sir:
I have but very little time to write, but, as in these
exciting times we are very anxious to hear from you, and know of no other way
but by writing first to you, I must make time.
We get but little news by telegraph from St. Louis, but from
all other points of the country we are hearing all the time. The times are
indeed startling, but now is the time, particularly in the border slave States,
for men to prove their love of country. I know it is hard for men to apparently
work with the Republican party, but now all party distinctions should be lost
sight of, and every true patriot be for maintaining the integrity of the
glorious old Stars and Stripes, the Constitution and the Union. The North is
responding to the President's call in such a manner that the Rebels may truly
quake. I tell you, there is no mistaking the feelings of the people. The
Government can call into the field not only 75,000 troops, but ten or twenty
times 75,000 if it should be necessary, and find the means of maintaining them,
too.
It is all a mistake about the Northern pocket being so
sensitive. In times like the present, no people are more ready to give their
own time, or of their abundant means. No impartial man can conceal from himself
the fact that in all these troubles the Southerners have been the aggressors
and the Administration has stood purely on the defensive, more on the defensive
than she would have dared to have done but for her consciousness of strength
and the certainty of right prevailing in the end. The news to-day is that
Virginia has gone out of the Union. But for the influence she will have on the
other border slave Slates, this is not much to be regretted. Her position, or
rather that of Eastern Virginia, has been more reprehensible from the beginning
than that of South Carolina. She should be made to bear a heavy portion of the
burden of the war for her guilt.
In all this I can but see the doom of slavery. The North
does not want, nor will they want, to interfere with the institution; but they will
refuse for all time to give it protection unless the South shall return soon to
their allegiance; and then, too, this disturbance will give such an impetus to
the production of their staple, cotton, in other parts of the world that they
can never recover the control of the market again for that commodity. This will
reduce the value of the negroes so much that they will never be worth fighting
over again.
I have just received a letter from Fred.1 He
breathes forth the most patriotic sentiments. He is for the old flag as long as
there is a Union of two States fighting under its banner, and when they
dissolve, he will go it alone. This is not his language, but it is the idea,
not so well expressed as he expresses it.
Julia and the children are well, and join me in love to you
all. I forgot to mention that Fred has another heir, with some novel name that
I have forgotten.
Yours truly,
U. S. Grant.
Get John or Lewis Sheets to write me.
_______________
1 Frederick Dent, Jr.
SOURCES: John Y. Simon, Editor, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: Volume 2: April to September, 1861,
p. 3-4; Loomis T. Palmer, Editor, The
Life of General U. S. Grant, p. 41-2.
