Letter from SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD and MARY CHURCHILL BAIRD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated January 16, 1875.
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My Dear Mr Marsh.
I wrote the Agricultural Department to ascertain its intention about publishing a corrected edition of your paper. Mr Dodge, the Editor of the Report, informs me that they have no copy in the Office, but that if they can get one from you, with the corrections you desire, they will try to have it introduced in the forthcoming Report. Please, therefore send the pamphlet as soon as possible.
We shall look with expectation for the arrival of the box which you announce as sent to the State Department. Lucy will be delighted to see her "Archaeological Bulletin."
Very truly yoursSpencer F BairdHon. Geo.P. MarshU.S. Minister,Rome
[The following is written vertically along the left margin of the page.]
P.S. Jan. 17. The Bulletin has just arrived: very acceptable and Lucy much
thankful
My Dear Mr. Marsh,
Many thanks from Lucy for the package you sent to her.
Spence's sister, Mrs. Henry J. Biddle, of Philadelphia, is spending a year in Europe with three of her children, & is shortly going to Italy, & will be the bearer of an introduction to you, long-suffering man as you are from people's friends. She is the widow of H.J. Biddle, who, being on Gen. McCall's staff, was wounded & taken prisoner in one of the "seven days" battles before Richmond, in 1862, was taken prisoner & died in prison, leaving our sister & five little children. I am glad to say they are very well to do, & her oldest daughter being now grown up, her mother has taken her & two other children to see Europe, or as much as may be in one year.
They propose "going to Italy in February," & Mollie asks us to give her a letter to you. I hope you will not find them any more of a burden than the hundreds of Americans "made known" to you. Judging by the numbers whom I have heard say that you & dear Mrs. Marsh had been "particularly kind" to them, your good-nature must have exhausting drafts made upon it, unless you are in some way fed upon some sort of celestial, moral carrots, or whatever may be the food which would nourish & keep up the flow of the milk of human kindness.
With unabated love for you both, & also for Mary Edmunds,
Yours affectionately
Mary H. C. Baird.
References in this letter:
George Perkins Marsh, Irrigation: Its Evils, the Remedies, and the Compensations. Rome, July 24, 1873. February 10, 1874; 43 Congress I Session; Senate Miscellaneous Documents 55.
Archaeological Bulletin of the Muncipality of Rome Rome. Commissione Archeologica. Bulletino: 1872-1920.
Mary Baird Biddle, Baird's youngest sister, called "Mollie.".
George Archibald McCall (1802-1868) was a brigadier general in the Union Army.