Publication InformationTurin May 1' 1862

Page 1

Dear Powers

The publication of my book is postponed till September, & of course, I shall not go to England at present. This leaves Mrs Marsh free to adapt her movements to your convenience. She would like to be present at a dinner of 100 covers, to be given by the American Minister at Turin to a lately married English gentleman and American lady on the 31' of May at 5½ P.M. , & therefore would go to Florence, in time to get through with you, and return with the couple aforesaid (i.e. if they come by an ordinary direct route); or she would go immediately after May 31, & stay as long as you wish.

Now

please say, as soon as may be convenient, which she shall do.

I am mighty nervous about Yorktown. I am not one of those who put their trust in the "quaker general," and if "our great peacock," as the Herald calls him, don't lose some of his feathers, I shall be agreeably disappointed. The man's heart, I fear, isn't in his work. Mrs M is exceedingly obliged to Mrs P. for her kindness to Carrie. Carrie has good western pluck, & I think won't be homesick.

Yours trulyG P Marsh

H Powers Esq

References in this letter:

Marsh's The Origin and History of the English Language, and of the Early Literature It Embodies, was published in 1862; a revised edition appeared in 1885.

General George B. McClellan, moving northward toward Richmond from Fort Monroe, Virginia, along the peninsula between the York and James rivers, laid siege to Confederate fortifications near Yorktown from April 5 to May 4, 1862, when they were abandoned by their defenders.

Reference to General George B. McClellan.

Carrie Marsh Crane, Caroline Marsh's niece, daughter of her brother Thomas, accompanied the Marshs for a number of years during his tenure as minister to Italy. She died in a shipwreck in 1874.