H. R Washington Jany 19. 1861
My dear wife
Your letter of the 12th and 13th and 14th was duly received and has caused us great anxiety on account of the illness of our dear little daughter. We shall be trembling with fear for every hour that hangs over the uncertainty of her illness. I hope we will receive a letter today. If we do not we will hope she is not worse. You are so far away I will hereafter insist on your coming nearer to us during future sessions.
Things still look precarious. We have not power to do what ought to be done; and while revolution proceeds it is hard to say what would be best. This Capitol is the Key to our Nationality and it can only be with with Maryland. That it seems to me is a clear and incontroversable proposition. To hold Maryland we must try to do so pecibly for if forces be necessary to hold such a state against the will of her people will require a very strong force and the United efforts of every branch of our government. Unity everywhere and prudent Councils are necessary to hold this point and our impatient friends who wonder why we do not make more bluster should rather reproach the indiscretion of some who throw firebrands which are used by those who guard the citidel of a great good and glorious confederacy.
I send you a globe of today giving a 5 minute speech of mine on the power to hold border states. It is short and to the point, and the Gate ought to publish it.1
I have just made a speech of about 5 minutes on the subject Indian wars. It ought to be published also I will send it forward tomorrow. However this last should be published at Council Bluffs as it is more on frontier matters and excuses our frontier people for their unfortunate struggles in Indian difficulties.2
I had a long letter yesterday from Texas giving me assurances that the conspiracy for taking this capitol extends to Texas and is part of the plan of the Knights of the Golden Circle3 who No. one hundred and fifty thousand men Sworn to do any and everything to carry out their revolutionary purposes. The letters comes from an old friend and free Mason now in Texas. He says he does not want to see Sam Curtis Tom Corwin & John Sherman assassinated.4
I think we are very safe so long as Maryland hold firm, but her secession cannot be accomplished in a day and cannot be accomplished without “the note of preparation” I am therefore very easy in my place in the performance of my duty.
You are very right in saying I ought to write to Mr Graham.5 Tell him he is not the less the first object of my influence.
Tell him (and tell no body else) I have set my eye on the office of 5th Auditor and I have the promise of the aid of Mr. Harlan6 for that particular thing. It is to audit the Post office accounts which I am told requires but little personal labor but the charge of clerks who do the duty.
We are all very well. Mr. Sturges Sadie and I have arranged to go over to George Town today after dinner to visit the Nichols. We are all very well and Affectionately yours
Saml. R. Curtis
1. A short speech delivered January 19, it was in reply to a resolution proposed by Jenkins of Virginia that none of the army approriations be used to recover forts or arsenals taken by states now seceded, or from those which may secede. Curtis declared: “When the forts of the Government are taken by lawless mobs, I deem it my duty to vote for their recovery. . . . I would adopt every means of conciliation, exhaust all other means before I would resort to force ; but, as a Representative of the United States, I could never consent to a proposition like that now offered. . .” Congressional Globe, op. cit., p. 461. The remarks never appeared in the Gate City, largely because of the controversial Union meetings then in progress.
2. Also a short speech, delivered the same day, January 19. Cong. Globe, 478. The speech was not printed in the Gate City.
3. The Knights of the Golden Circle was organized about 1855, had definite pro-Southern directions. During the Civil War it was an active Copperhead organization. cf. American Historical Review, XLVII, 23-50.
4. Thomas Corwin and John Sherman, both of Curtis’ former state of Ohio, were colleagues in the House of R.
5. Probably John A. Graham, former mayor of Keokuk, 1849-1852, a Virginian by birth.
6. Senator James Harlan of Iowa.