Publication Information

Hon George P Marsh.

Page 1

My Dear Friend

I am very glad that your letter has given my Son and myself an opportunity to afford our mite to the Cause of our Country, and thank you much for it --

Longworth will send (by post) to day 214 photographs--upon most of which I have written my name -- The (as they are not in any way my work) I have not touched)

I have a marble bust of Washington--not engaged--in my Studio worth £75.00 (seventy five pounds) which I am willing to give if it could be boxed up and sent--free of expense to me -- I suppose that freight and all to N York or Boston would amount to about $25.00 but I have no to spare it being that the war has affected my business affairs very seriously. Perhaps the Committee having in charge this business might be willing to pay these expenses --

The bust has a marble mark on it, but the face is all right, and the workmanship as good as as any thing of mine. It is from the same model as the one of which I now send photographs, and full size -- I charge £80. for such a bust in perfect marble --

Please write to me, if the photographs do not reach you Safely. --

In this letter I shall enclose a photograph from the statue of America, which is not bad though for want of a high light, the face is not so expressive as it should be -- Also one from the bust of "Eve" which

you will perceive, is superior to the one from the plaster cast -- If you would like to have several of them to give to your friends--say so and I will send them, but without expense to you --

I think that day light is beginning to dawn upon our Country, while confusion seems to reign in the South -- The Cry of the southern papers grows louder and louder--these we can hear--but the cries of the thousands of families--suffering every privation imaginable we do not hear -- Still--we hear of them--and know--that armies will not long hold together--when composed of fathers and brothers of the starving population -- I cannot but pity the helpless and innocent victims of Jeff Davis and his unprincipled gang of Traitors! --When the war is over--it will be found--I dare say--that horrors of which few at the north have even dreamed--have had place in the South --

I suppose--that in all wars--however just on one side and unjust on the other, there have been and must be a considerable number like our Fernando Wood and Seymour party in the midst to make confusion--but I wonder at the toleration of these men at the North--and confess, that I sometimes feel--that--if at home, I would lead a mob to tar and feather them--and treat them to a ride on a rail "grevious to bestride"

We have now our Daughter and Son in Law Mr & Mrs Ibbotson with us, who join us in kindest regards to you and dear Mrs Marsh--to whom please say--that not being satisfied with the drapery I put

to her bust, I have remodelled that part of it. I am sorry you have to wait so long for the marble, but in these times I have to do as I can--and not as I would. It will have its turn ere long -- When it is done it will be well done --

Ever most truly yours,

Florence

Feb. 9 1864 --

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P.S. As the mentioned in the first page--are of a nature not likely to be interesting in America--we have concluded not to send them -- They consist of little detached bits of scenery of no note --

There are 3 parcels of the photographs 72. in each of two parcels, and 70 in the other -- They are done up in the way photographs are usualy sent by my son to the Post for distant places, and they ought to reach you safely --

References in this letter:

(Nicholas) Longworth Powers, Hiram and Elizabeth Powers' second child, was born in Cincinnati in 1835 and died in 1924 in Florence after a long career there as a photographer.

Powers' heroic statue of a partially-clothed female figure representing the United States was modeled in plaster between August 1848 and September 1849. The marble replica made from it, completed in 1855, never found a buyer and was destroyed in a warehouse fire in Brooklyn, New York, in 1865.

"Eve Disconsolate," a full-size bust of a nude female figure made in 1862, was taken from the full-size statue of the same name which Powers sculpted between 1859 and 1861 and which, Powers wrote, depicts "Eve accusing the serpent." Over the next decade numerous marble replicas were sold, several of which are today in American museums like the Smithsonian Institution, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Fernando Wood (1812-1881), a leading member of the Peace Democrats, was mayor of New York City 1861-62 and member of the House of Representatives 1862-65.

Horatio Seymour (1810-1886) was Democratic governor of New York from 1863 to 1865.

Powers, as a gesture of friendship to Caroline Crane Marsh (1816-1901) and her husband, George Perkins Marsh, American ambassador to Italy, had her sit for a bust in June 1862. The marble replica made from the plaster cast, presented to the Marshes in late 1864 or early 1865, is now in the Fleming Museum of the University of Vermont.