RICHMOND, May 2, 1861.
MY DEAR MRS GARDINER: I have but a moment ago received your
letter from the hands of Mrs. Pegram, and regret to perceive the nervous
concern you feel in relation to the safety of our dear Julia and the children.
Be assured that they will always be in safety. The vaunts and terrible boasts
of the North are one thing-the execution of them another. In mustering their troops
in the large cities, they, of course, are more expeditious than it can be done
in the country; but we are ready for them, and number in Virginia at this
moment more troops under arms and in the field, panting for the conflict, than
they can arm, provision, and support for a campaign.
The whole State is clad in steel, under the command of the
most accomplished leaders. General Scott is too old and infirm to take the
field, while our commander, General Lee, a son of Harry Lee of the Revolution,
the most accomplished officer and gentlemen, will lead our armies. The
volunteers have come in such numbers that thousands are ordered home. Our
fighting men in the State number 120,000. North Carolina and Tennessee have
followed our lead, while the further South sends us succours. Our people are
filled with enthusiasm. I had never supposed it possible that so much
enthusiasm could prevail among men. In a week from this time, James River will
bristle with fortifications, and Charles City will be far safer than Staten
Island.
No one of all these hosts is boastful; none blood-thirsty;
all generous and brave. Why, my dear Mrs. Gardiner, judging from the tone of
the papers, the North has fallen back on the age of barbarism. The era of
Robespierre was never more savage. I would not trust any one bearing my name,
even our little Pearl, to New York, if the Herald, Tribune, Courier, and
Enquirer, and Times are the true exponents of Northern sentiments.1
No, my family and myself here are safe. The mob sent out relieves your cities,
it is true, but other mobs will rise up to overthrow order. If I find our
situation dangerous on the river, we will go to the mountains, or other
retreats in Virginia.
Little Julia is well and happy. All are well at Sherwood
Forest. With my congratulations to the Colonel on account of his boy, and
affectionate regards to his wife.
I am, most truly yours,
JOHN TYLER.
_______________
* Mrs. Gardiner's residence was on Staten Island, New York.
She had, annually exchanged visits with her daughter, Mrs. Tyler, who was wont
to visit her in the summer.
1 The New York Courier and Enquirer advised the
most rigid system of blockade on the South, that the negroes should be let
loose on the whites, men, women and children indiscriminately, and to prostrate
the levees of the Mississippi, so as to drown the rebels on the lower Mississippi,
“just as we would drown out rats infesting the hull of a ship." The New
York Tribune said that "Virginia was a rich and beautiful State, the very
garden of the Confederacy," and advised that her lands should be parcelled
out among the pioneers who are on their way to Washington at this moment in
regiments." The Philadelphia Transcript bellowed that desolation must be
"carried from the Potomac to the Rio Grande." "If necessary,
myriads of Southern lives must be taken; Southern bodies given to the buzzards;
Southern fields consigned to sterility, and Southern towns surrendered to the
flames." The Southerners "should not be permitted to return to
peaceful and contented homes. They must find poverty at their fireside, and see
privation in the anxious eyes of mothers, and the rags of children." The
Westchester Democrat, in urging on the Pennsylvania troops, said that Baltimore had "always been celebrated for the beauty of its women; that the fair
were ever the reward of the brave, and that Beauty and Booty had been the
watchword of New Orleans."—See Howison's
History of the War.
SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times
of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 643-4