Mrs. Jacob Thompson[i] to Mrs. Howell Cobb.
Washington City, Dec. 15/60.
My Dear Mrs. Cobb, … I did not see Gov. Cobb after you left. Mr. Thompson went to see him every day and often invited him to take dinner with us but he never could spare the time. His resignation created great excitement here. Mr. Thomas[ii] has entered upon the discharge of his duties but I have not seen any of the family since their new laurels have fallen upon them. There is great excitement now that Genl. Cass has resigned[iii], and before I finish this letter I will see Mr. Thompson and write you the truth about it. The same gloom and depression is still over this city—no parties, no dinners, every body looks sad—but I think we Southern people ought to be looking up, for all seems to be going well with us, but I am afraid to hollow until I am entirely out of the woods. I think if you could have heard some of the Black Republican speeches that have been made here even your devotion to this Union would have given away. You will read the President’s proclamation for fasting and prayer on the 4 of Jan., that tells whether he sees the danger or not. Miss Lane and I continue our silence on political questions—I go to see her and the President as often as I can because I know they feel their old friends are many of them deserting them. I will do all I can to stand by them until the 4 of March, and hope that day may come quickly. It is also rumored that Mr. Clayton[iv] has sent in his resignation to Mr. Thomas—if it is accepted Mr. Thompson says he will try to give Clayton the Comr. of Patents which will give him a place until the end of our term. Mr. Thompson has received an appointment from the Gov. of Missi. to go as Commissioner to N. Carolina, and leaves here on Monday the 17 and I am going with him, he will be absent a week or ten days and I can’t stay here by myself. The President approves of his going. Mr. Lamar[v] 3 has returned home to be a candidate for the State convention. He is very reasonable on the secession question, does not go as far as your husband nor mine, but he amuses me, telling me how delighted he is with his present home and position in the College and yet he can’t stay there more than a month at a time. . . .
All your friends here enquire a great deal about you. The Gwins are all well and go up to the Capitol every day. I have been up twice, the galleries crowded. I have made no Senatorial calls except upon old friends. I shall not call upon or leave cards upon a single B. Republican or Douglas. “Straws tell which way the wind blows,” and to be prepared for any emergency, I had ½ doz. packs of cards for Mr. Thompson struck off and left off the Sec. of the Interior, as I have no idea of his cards ever being left anywhere as Mr. Ex. Sec. as some of the old broken down politicians here do. Gov. and Mrs. Floyd came over to spend the evening with us last evening and I enjoyed it very much. I find I have a great deal of time to stay at home since you left, as I have no place to go to that fills up your house. I felt like some duty was left undone if I did not go to see you every day for several weeks before you left. Some company has just come in, social visitors, this bad day, and I will lay my pen aside until they are gone.
After dinner.—Mr. Thompson returned from his office after 5 o’clock and brought Mr. Ashe of N. Carolina home to dine with us; he gives good accounts of the secession movement in that state., and will go with us to Raleigh on Monday. Maj. McCulloch has just left, and he has the steam high up for secession and war if we can’t do better. Dr. Maynard (the gun man) has been here two hours trying to sell Mr. Thompson 3.000 guns, so my head is nearly crazy and my heart goes pit-a-pat, at any sound I hear. What are we all coming to? Where is the end of all this trouble? I trust there is a kind Providence whose hand is directing this great revolution and will all go down to his glory and our happiness. . . .
P. S.—Mr. Thompson says it is all true Genl. Cass has resigned and is a miserable man.
[i] Wife of the Secretary of the Interior in Buchanan’s Cabinet.
[ii] Philip F. Thomas, of Maryland, Secretary of the Treasury ad interim.
[iii] From the secretaryship of state.
[iv] Philip Clayton, Auditor of the Treasury.
[v] L. Q. C. Lamar.
From Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911.
Sixteen-year-old Catherine Jones, the daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, and Jacob Thompson, 28, married in 1838, The couple had one child, Macon Caswell Thompson, born the next year. In addition to a success in his law practice and as a cotton planter, Jacob Thompson was involved in state politics and was elected to Congress in 1839, where he served six terms in the House of Representatives as chairman of the Committee on Public Lands and later as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. In 1857, President James Buchanan appointed him Secretary of the Interior.
Jacob resigned at the outbreak of the American Civil War and was appointed Inspector General of the Confederate States Army. In 1864, Jefferson Davis asked Thompson to lead a delegation to Canada, where he appears to have been leader of the Confederate Secret Service. From here, he is known to have organised many anti-Union plots and was suspected of many more, including a possible meeting with Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.