Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to HIRAM POWERS, dated May 6, 1862.
Primary tabs
Dear Powers
You were about the dinner. We did not think of asking anybody but the [Feltenhams?]. So the young folks need not tremble. There will be no more terrible person at the table than myself, and at present I am not dangerous, except to the wicked.
Mrs Marsh rather prefers June to May. You spoke of going to London about the 15' of
June, & if that is still your purpose, she will go, so as to give you ten
days before that time; but if you postpone that journey, & it is otherwise
equally agreeable to you, she would prefer say from the 8 or 10 to the 20', so that
she could
bring Carrie with her (though a little before the end of her 'term)
& so save the expense of sending a special messenger for her. But don't
change your plans. Just say about what day in June you prefer, & she will
come accordingly.
I am glad you have faith in Mclellan's honesty. He inspires me with no confidence in any respect. The retreat of the rebels from Manassas unmolested is fatal to him, & if I had been President, I would have struck him from the rolls of the army instantly or hanged him.
He will be defeated at Yorktown, & I am
afraid we shall find Corinth a hard nut to
crack. Think of members of Congress talking of dismissing 150,000 men! I would
sooner enlist 1,500,000. England means us mischief, & will interfere in a
few weeks, if we don't crush the rebels.
Yours very trulyGeo P Marsh
H Powers Esq
References in this letter:
The first significant engagement of the Civil War took place at a creek near Manassas Junction, Virginia, thirty miles west of Washington, D.C., when Confederate troops under General Pierre G. T. Beauregard defeated Union forces heading for Richmond.
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.
Union forces under Major General Henry Halleck took Corinth, Mississippi, on May 30, 1862, a move which contributed to the Confederate evacuation of Memphis, Tennessee, on June 6.