Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD, dated February 19, 1857.
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Dear Baird
I hear thou hast asked for sulphurs. When I return home some two weeks since they shall be sent thee.
Mine especial good friend Charles Anderson Esq of Cincinnati, not a professed naturalist, doth nevertheless make rattlesnakery a specialité. Could D somebody's lecture on that interesting topic be sent him? Also perhaps he will write that: Deal with him kindly, for he is my good friend.
I hope Mary continues to improve. I don't think I
shall be at Washington soon.
I know nothing about my claim, & presume it will fare as it has before --
I have been "out yere" certain days, in continual peril of my soul, as I journeyed along, by reason of floods, broken bridges, railroad chances & the like, but tomorrow I think to turn my face Eastwards, and I shall bid adieu to the without a sigh.
Not all the gophers in Illinois would tempt me to dwell in this famed west, even were I as desperate a naturalist as you.
Well, exit Pierce, enter Buchanan! Which is the
poorer creature of the two will
soon be known to those who are able to dive
low enough for such investigations as this.
I wish they may both be rewarded according to their works. My love attends Mary, thyself & thy little one, as also such other as be near & dear to you
GoodbyeYours trulyG. P. Marsh
References in this letter:
Franklin Pierce (1804-69), the 14th President of the United States, held the office from 1853 to 1857. His cabinet was an attempt to smooth over splits within the Democratic Party and included William L. Marcy, Stephen A. Douglas, and James Buchanan as well as Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing, a northerner sympathetic to slave holders. He failed to win renomination and was succeeded by Buchanan.