George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, April 7, 1864

My Dear Charles, — How grandly the country is speaking for the war and the policy! Night before last I dined with Colonel Raasloff¹ and Count Piper and Habricht, and I claimed that thus far we had proved that in a republic patriotism was not necessarily subordinated to party spirit. It seems just now as if our true victory were to be greater than even we had supposed.

I have seen Lincoln tete-a-tete since I saw you, and my personal impression of him confirmed my previous feeling. I am sorry that Fremont seems to be placed in a position which can please no real friend of his. Only to-day I have an invitation from the office of “The New Nation” to meet some friends of all the radical candidates to “take steps to form a radical national committee, and to secure a radical platform, and a reliable radical man for the presidential campaign about to open.” Last week I went to Baltimore, and supped at the Union Club with a dozen of the most strenuous men there. Every one, when the war began, was a pro-slavery man; now they will have nothing but immediate, uncompensated emancipation. Charles, you and I are superannuated fogies.

_______________

¹ The Danish Minister.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 177-8

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, Monday Evening, March 3, 1862

Monday evening, 3 March, 1862.

. . . On the day you left us I had a long and most entertaining talk from Emerson about his experiences in Washington. Two things he said were especially striking. “When you go southward from New York you leave public opinion behind you. There is no such thing known in Washington.” — “It consoles a Massachusetts man to find how large is the number of egotists in Washington. Every second man thinks the affairs of the country depend upon him.” He reported a good saying of Stanton, when the difficulty of making an advance on account of the state of the roads was spoken of, — “Oh,” said he, “the difficulty is not from the mud in the roads, but the mud in the hearts of the Generals.”

Emerson said that Seward was very strong in his expressions concerning the incapacity and want of spirit of Congress, — and that Sherman and Colfax confirmed what Seward said, ascribing much of the manifest weakness to “Border State” influence.

And much more. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 251-2

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, October 15, 1863

15th October, 1863.

Whatever is happening to Meade, let us rejoice over Pennsylvannia and Ohio. It is the great vindication of the President, and the popular verdict upon the policy of the war. It gives one greater joy than any event which has lately happened. Is it not the sign of the final disintegration of that rotten mass known as the Democratic party? In this State we have sloughed off the name Republican and are known as the Union party. How glad I am that we can gladly bear that name, and that the Union at last means what it was intended by the wisest and the best of our fathers to mean!

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 166-7

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: September 22, 1862

God bless Abraham Lincoln. He has issued a proclamation emancipating all slaves on the 1st of January, 1863, in any State then in rebellion against the Government. Father and George think it's splendid and believe fully in its wisdom and effects, but Mother fears it won't be as well as if he had emancipated on the spot, although of course she rejoices in the step. Howard went for the papers this morning and proclaimed the news aloud as he appeared, thereby upsetting the equilibrium of the family. Old Abe is wise and I guess this will work.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 34-5

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, February 9, 1862

Shady Hill, Sunday, 9 February, 1862.

. . . Jane and I went to hear Frederic Douglass. It was a sad though interesting performance. He said very little to the purpose, and nothing that was of worth as helping toward clearer conclusions in regard to the future of the black race in America. There was a want of earnestness and true feeling in his speech. It was discursive, shallow, personal, and though he said some clever things and displayed some power of humorous irony, it was on the whole a melancholy exhibition, for neither the circumstances of the time, nor the immeasurable importance of the topic were enough to inspire him with wise or sincere counsel. I could not but think how far he was from such honesty of purpose and depth of feeling as were in John Brown's heart. There were several eloquent and well meant passages in his lecture, but most of it was crude and artificial. We could not but come away disappointed and even disheartened.

How good the news is from Tennessee!¹ We have waited so long for success that we may well be glad when it comes. I trust that this is a blow to be followed up. . . .

_______________

¹ Fort Henry had just been taken, and Fort Donelson was about to fall

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 251

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, July 19, 1863

New York, July 19th, '63.

On Tuesday evening, upon an intimation from a man who had heard the plot arranged in the city to come down and visit me that night, and find Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips, “who were concealed in my house,” I took the babies out of bed and departed to an unsuspected neighbor's. On Wednesday a dozen persons informed me and Mr. Shaw that our houses were to be burned; and as there was no police or military force upon the island, and my only defensive weapon was a large family umbrella, I carried Anna and the two babies to James Sturgis's in Roxbury. Frank was with Mrs. Shaw at Susie Minturn's up the river. Today I am going with him to Roxbury, but shall return immediately, so that I cannot see you. We have now organized ourselves in the neighborhood for mutual defense, and I do not fear any serious trouble.

The good cause gains greatly by all this trouble. The government is strong enough to hold New York, if necessary, as it holds New Orleans, Baltimore, and St. Louis. There must be a great deal more excitement, and if Seymour can bring the State, under a form of law, against the national government, he will do it. It will be done by a state decision of the unconstitutionality of the conscription act. But as a riot it has been suppressed, as an insurrection it has failed. No Northern conspiracy for the rebellion can ever have so fair a chance again as it had in this city last week, without soldiers, with a governor friendly to the mob, and with only a splendid police which did its duty as well as Grant's army.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 165-6

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, December 31, 1861

Shady Hill, 31 December, 1861.

. . . Lowell has been spending the evening with us, and brought up to read to us his new Biglow Paper. It is one of the best things that he ever did, — it is a true Yankee pastoral and lyric; — not another letter of B. Sawin, but a poem or rather two poems of Hosea's own, — the first a dialogue between Concord Bridge and Bunker Hill monument, — the last a lyric about Jonathan and John, with the most spirited refrain. I am sure that you will be as delighted with it as I am. There is no doubt but that it will touch the popular heart.

I entirely agree with you as to the masterly manner in which Seward has treated the Trent case. If his paper has too much the character of a legal plea for strict diplomatic usage, it is to be remembered that it is to be in reality addressed to the American people and not to Lord Lyons. Shall we yet have to fight England? With all my heart I hope not, — but if need be, I am ready. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 250

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, March 11, 1863

11th March, 1863.

Not only has the reaction consumed itself, but it is of the greatest significance that the result is not due to a victory, but is a purely intellectual and moral recuperation. I have been very sure that, when the Democratic party found that they could not operate on the base of peace, they would hurry over to war, as McClellan from the Pamunkey to the James. But the movement shows that the strongest and most sagacious men of the party are its old Southern leaders. Jeff and his friends have known from the beginning that it was a war of ideas, which had exhausted compromise and had to fight. The Northern Democrats refuse to acknowledge the truth, but they are forced to act upon it, which comes practically to the same thing.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 164

George William Curtis to John J. Pinkerton, February 17, 1863

February 17, 1863.

The fate of the country is being settled in this lull. If it awakes divided, we have a long, sharp fight before us all. The instinct of union, if not stronger than that of liberty, in this people, as Mr. Seward once said, is yet too strong to be squelched like a tallow dip. There was never but one government that merely tumbled down and died, and that was Louis Philippe's! We are too young, and the government has been too long consciously a general benefit, to allow such a result here. Even Vallandigham, braying to Copperheads in New Jersey, is obliged to say that he is for union. John Van Crow has jumped to the dominant tune, and the wayward sisters are rebels to be put down. The “Herald” is afraid of the “Express” and “World” for rushing reaction into absurdity, and plants itself square upon war. Bennett told Mahoney, when he asked him to print his letter, that he was a damned fool.

When the question is fairly put, “Shall we whittle this great sovereign power down to a Venezuela or Guatemala?” if the soul of the people does not snort scorn and defiance, then good-night to Marmion.

I feel steadily cheerful, and yet, as you know, I am a traveler, not a recluse.

Do you mean that you have evacuated West Chester finally? What says MacVeagh? My friendly regards to him if ever you write.

Faithfully yours,

George William Curtis.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 163

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, December 5, 1861

Shady Hill, 5 December; Thursday evening.

. . . We are very serious over the President's Message. We think it very poor in style, manner and thought, — very wanting in pith, and exhibiting a mournful deficiency of strong feeling and of wise forecast in the President. This “no policy” system in regard to the conduct of the war and the treatment of the slavery question is extremely dangerous, and must at the best produce very unfortunate divisions of opinion and of action among the people; — it is truly a very sad thing to see each successive opportunity for great, decisive, right counsels thus thrown away and worse than lost. The chances of true success for us are diminishing with alarming rapidity. The Sibyl has burned three, — six, — seven — of her books. How many has she left to offer us? And shall we not have to pay more than we can get, for what are left? . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 246

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, February 14, 1863

February 14, '63.

General Burnside came to see mother a day or two since. He spoke with utmost respect and love of Joe. He said that he was one of the few officers that “rose” in the fight; that his coolness, valor, and sagacity kept pace; and that he would have been necessarily a distinguished officer. Dear boy! I see his calm, sweet, dead face, and I think of his lovely life, “wrapped sweet in his shroud, the hope of humanity not yet extinguished in him.”

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 162

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, October 2, 1861

Newport, 2 October, 1861.

. . . I sent you yesterday a copy of de Vere's last volume of poems. There are some very charming things in it. He has genuine poetic sensibility, and with age he gains power of expression and depth of thought. In everything he writes he shows the refinement of his taste, the delicacy of his feeling, and his strong religious sentiment. He is greatly pleased with any expression of appreciation from America, and if you have a fit opportunity I wish you would say something of this volume in print. And if you should do so, please be sure to tell me, (for I do not always see “Harper's Monthly” and “Weekly”), that I may send it to him.

De Vere has taken from the beginning the most intelligent and sympathetic view of our great contest. I read you, I think, one of his letters about it; and in later letters he has expressed his convictions still more fully and warmly. Nor is this volume without the marks of his hearty interest in our struggle.

I have great faith in Fremont. But how painfully little we know! and how ungenerously that little is used against Fremont by the public generally in forming their opinion of his course! I earnestly hope that he may soon have a success which shall win back to him the popular confidence. Events prove Lincoln's modifications of his proclamation even more unfortunate than it at first seemed, — and even at first it seemed bad enough. In a fight so desperate as that which is now being waged in Missouri we have need of all our arms, — and Lincoln has compelled us to throw aside the most effective of them all, — he has spiked our gun of longest range. Have I before quoted to you Milton's sentence about those “who coming in the course of these affairs to have their share in great actions above the form of law or custom . . .  dispute precedents, forms, circumstances when the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, done with just and faithful expedition?” “To these,” as he says, “I wish better instruction, and virtue equal to their calling.”

It is an unexampled experience that we are having now, and a striking development of the democratic principle, — of great historic deeds being accomplished, and moral principles working out their results, with out one great man to do the deeds or to manifest the principle in himself.

The fight in Kentucky seems to me one of the most important phases in the war. Her conduct for the past year has been so mean that she deserves the suffering that has come upon her; but in her borders we have now got slave-holders arrayed against slave-holders, and between them they will kill slavery in her limits. I hope you are wrong in thinking that we shall lose her, — though, if we do, I shall not much grieve, believing that every reverse of ours but makes our final success more certain, and gives to it a solid reality which would not be the result of an easy triumph. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 242-4

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, February 6, 1863

February 6, 1863.

Why should Dr. Holmes trouble himself about the base of McClellan's brain? McClellan has nothing to do with all this McClellanization of the public mind. The reaction requires a small Democrat with great military prestige for its presidential candidate. The new programme, you know, is a new conservative party of Republicans and Democrats, and all mankind except Abolitionists. It will work, I think, for as a party we have broken down. I blame nobody. It was inevitable. The “Tribune,” through the well-meaning mistakes of Greeley, has been forced to take (in the public mind, which is the point) the position of W. Phillips, — the Union if possible, emancipation anyhow. As a practical political position that is not tenable. If, by any hocus-pocus, the war order of emancipation should be withdrawn, we should be lost forever, beyond McClellan's power, assisted by John Van Buren, the “Boston Courier” and “Post” and the “New York Herald,” to save us. There's nothing for us but to go forward and save all we can.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 161

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, August 24, 1861

Newport, 24 August, 1861.

. . . I do not agree with you that the war is likely to be short. Its issue may soon become certain, but it will be long before we can lay down our arms. Nor am I ready yet to share in any gloomy prognostications. I believe the people will save the country and the government in spite of all the weakness and mismanagement and corruption at Washington. Nor am I afraid of the effect of another defeat, — if another should come. It will indeed bring to the surface an immense show of cowardice, and meanness; but we have no right yet to believe that the temper of our people is so low that it will not rise with the trial and [sic] of calamity. I bate nothing of heart or hope, and I grieve to think that you should ever feel out of heart or despondent. We have not yet more than begun to rouse ourselves; we are just bracing to the work; but we are setting to it at last in earnest.

The practical matter to be attended to at this moment seems to me to be the change in the Cabinet. A change must be made, — and it will be made, if not by the pressure now brought to bear, then by a popular revolution. We shall have public meetings of a kind to enforce their resolves in the course of a few days, if Cameron, Welles and Smith are not removed, or the best reason given for retaining them. Mr. Seward ought to understand that it is not safe for him that they should any longer remain in the Cabinet. If another reverse were to come and they still there, the whole Cabinet would have to go; — and then let Mr. Lincoln himself look out for a Committee of Safety. . . .

Let me hear from you again soon, — and above all do not begin to doubt our final success.

If the fortunes of war go against us, if all our domestic scoundrels give aid to the cause of the rebels, — we still shall not fail, and the issue will be even better than our hopes.

Most affectionately

Yours,

Charles E. N.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 241-2

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 28, 1862

December 28, '62.

This will be a crucial week. The counter proclamation, the edict of emancipation, the opposition of Seymour & Co., and the mad desperation of the reaction, — all will not avail. The war must proceed, and to its natural result. Even Joseph Harper, the most Southern of the firm, said to me yesterday, “The negroes must be armed, and if Seymour does not support the war he will have no support.” Perhaps, if any possible way of settlement could be devised, there might be a strong party for it, but in deep water we must swim or drown. All our reverses, our despondence, our despairs, bring us to the inevitable issue: shall not the blacks strike for their freedom?

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 161

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 15, 1862

New York, December 15, '62.

I am at my mother's, — a house of mourning. On Saturday afternoon my brother Joe fell dead at the head of his regiment, ending at twenty-six years a stainless life in the holiest cause and in the most heroic manner. God rest his noble soul, and grant us all the same fidelity! My mother, who has felt the extreme probability of the event from the beginning, is as brave as she can be; but it is a fearful blow. She does not regret his going, and she knew the risk, but who can know the pang until it comes?¹

­­­­­_______________

¹ Joseph Bridgham Curtis was born in Providence, R. I., October 25, 1836. Educated as a civil engineer at the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Mass., he entered the Union service at the outbreak of the war in 1861 as engineer on the staff of the Ninth Regiment of the New York State National Guard. On the organization of the Fourth Rhode Island Regiment, he was appointed Adjutant. He served with Burnside at Roanoke and in the Army of the Potomac. The regiment was cut to pieces at Antietam, and fell back in disorder. Lieutenant Curtis seized the colors, shouting, “I go back no further! What is left of the Fourth Rhode Island, form here!” But there was not enough left to form, and Curtis, for the rest of the day, fought as a private in an adjoining command. He was made Lieutenant-Colonel on the reorganization of the regiment, and was in command at Fredericksburg. He was instantly killed at the head of his men on the evening of the battle of December 13,1862.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 160-1

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, July 26, 1861

Newport, 26 July, 1861.

. . . From the first I have looked on our defeat¹ in Virginia as a hard lesson, not as a disaster to be greatly regretted. It has taught us much. Instead of weakening confidence in our troops, the fight of last Sunday, in spite of its issue, will strengthen their faith in themselves. And in its effect on the public sentiment of the North it will be like the fall of Sumter. Everything that makes the attainment of our object in fighting more difficult, makes it at the same time more certain. Had we marched only to easy victory we might have had but half a triumph: now the triumph of our cause is likely to be complete. Nothing tears veils like cannon-shot, and the dullest eyes are beginning to see the real cause and the true remedy of our troubles. The emancipation of Virginia from slavery was finally settled, I think, last Sunday.

The New York papers, always excepting the “Evening Post,” go from bad to worse, the “Tribune” leading the rest. Fortunately none of them have much effect on public opinion, and they are losing most of what they may hitherto have possessed. “II y a quelqu'un qui a plus d'esprit que M. de Voltaire: c'est tout le monde.” The downfall of the fourth estate need not be wept over. . . .

_______________

¹ At Bull Run.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 237-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 10, 1862

Lowell, December 10, '62.

I had a very large audience this evening, and the lecture was admirably received. One man said, in the Cambridge vein, “He is a very dangerous man, he puts it so plausibly!” An American says so of the doctrine of the Declaration! You see there is work before us.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 160

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, October 6, 1862

North Shore, 6th October, 1862.

As for me and my chances, and the peace of the estimable Jane, — which is the only peace I care for just now, — they are in great peril! The “outs” in the county here have worked like beavers against me, who represent the “ins.” The free and native citizens of the island (especially those born trans mare) are resolved that a foreigner shall no longer carry the county in his fob. They beat me in going to Syracuse, and they have elected an anti-Curtis delegation to the Congressional Convention. There will be an unofficial delegation from this county which will urge me upon the Convention, and will say that I haven't the delegation because I refused to work for it. They will also say that I shall accept if nominated, although I do not think that the nominee will be elected. If they say what I have said to them — that for the right kind of a man I shall do exactly as I should for myself, they will probably secure another nomination, — because the convention will say: “Let us, then, have a candidate who will unite Richmond.” I should be very glad to be nominated, and gladder to be elected, but I have not taken the necessary steps.¹

I am going up to town this evening to dine with Colonel Raasloff and Count Piper and two or three more. The colonel goes to China immediately. I shall have to espouse the proclamation and make them like it, which they do not yet.

­­­_______________

¹ He was not nominated.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 159-60

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, June 16, 1861

Shady Hill, 16 June, 1861.

. . . Here at home we are all well, — and leading such tranquil lives that the contrast between them and the labours, anxieties, and sorrows of the war, is brought very strikingly home to our hearts. I know you must have felt very deeply the death of Theodore Winthrop. The loss of such men as he makes us feel how heavy a price the country has to pay for the support of the principles that are at stake. It is sad that he should have fallen so early in the struggle, and in such fulness of life. But no lover of his country, of liberty or of peace, would desire to change the manner of his death. Few men in our days have been happy enough to be called to die for a principle, or for their country's sake. There is real glory and joy in dying while doing good service in this war.

I am told that Winthrop's article, which is to appear in the “Atlantic” this week is as full of spirit and manliness as the one that came out last month. But with what a solemn commentary will it be read.

Our regiments enlisted for the war are going off one after another. The best of them is Gordon's,1 — so called from its colonel who is a West Pointer. It is officered throughout by gentlemen, and its ranks are full of fine fellows. But, I forget, you know all about it, and your hearts will follow it and go with it wherever it goes. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 234-5