As I Remember
up with that of your daughter.[3]
Faithfully and gratefully your friend,
J. HOLT.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3d, 1888.
My dear Mrs. Gouverneur:
I am in receipt of your very welcome letter of the 1st
instant and hasten to send the "Index" as requested. Hope it
may be of service in illustrating and supporting your
application. I shall preserve the Admiral's [Rear Admiral
Francis A. Roe, U.S.N.] emphatic words as a cherished
testimonial. The language of Mrs. Stanard is also very
grateful to me. Her favorable opinion is the more prized and
precious because she has known me so long and so well.
And now, my dear good friend, how can I sufficiently thank
you for your generous interest in this trouble of
mine--which has been a thorn in my life for so many
years--and for your surpassingly kind offices which have
been so effectively exercised in connection with it? Be
assured that while my poor words cannot adequately express
it, my heart will always throb with gratitude for the tokens
of good will with which you have so honored and gladdened
me.
I feel much complimented by so early a receipt of the
invitation to Miss Rose's wedding, and I shall have great
joy in being present.
* * * * *
Faithfully yours,
J. HOLT.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 21st, 1891.
Dear Mrs. Gouverneur:
I regret to be obliged to acknowledge the receipt of your
welcome letter by the hand of another, owing to the
condition of my eyes. For many weeks their inflammation has
prevented me from reading or writing, and I fear that this
condition will continue for a good while to come. So soon as
I am able to do so I will either write or have the pleasure
of calling on you. In the meanwhile believe me most grateful
for your letter which, however, has been but imperfectly
read. The darkened chambers of my life never had more need
than at present of the sunshine which your sympathizing
letters have always brought me.
Very sincerely yours,
J. HOLT.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 26th, 1893.
Dear Mrs. Gouverneur:
Your last two letters have been received and I thank you
heartily for them. As tokens of your continued friendly
remembrance they are precious to me. I am much obliged for
the privilege of reading the letter of Mrs. Vance [Mrs.
Zebulon B. Vance], which is herewith returned. It is another
of the many indications I have had of the subtle and wide
spread circulation given to the Johnson-Speed calumny to
which you refer. It seems to me that the poison is beyond
the reach of any human antidote, and that I must look to God
alone for shelter from it. Your generous and effective good
offices in this matter, so deeply affecting my reputation
and happiness, have filled my heart with an enduring
gratitude.
Your unflagging solicitudes, too, for my poor waning life
have much added to that debt of gratitude, great as it was
and is. Let the good Lord be praised for ever and ever that
spirits such as yours have been born into the world.
I am obliged to address you in this brief and unsatisfactory
manner by the hand of another. After two years and a half of
continued treatment I have as yet received no relief
whatever, nor do the eminent physicians who have treated me
afford me any encouragement for the future. While the world
feasts, it is evident that _my_ lot is and must be _ashes_
for _bread_.
Hoping that you are drinking yourself freely from the
fountain of happiness you open for others, I remain
Very sincerely your friend,
J. HOLT.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 12, 1893.
My dear good friend:
I regret much to be obliged to communicate with you by the
hand of another, but my poor life seems to be fixed by fate
on the down grade, and at present there is no encouragement
to believe that the future has anything better in store for
me.
I send you a number of the North American Review containing
the correspondence to which you refer between General Speed
and myself. In it there is also a detached printed letter of
Colonel Brown which is important. And I must ask that both
this letter and the number of the Review be carefully
preserved and after their perusal by your friend be returned
to me, as I have no other copies and wish to preserve these.
I am sorry that the sad circumstances of my condition
prevent me from thanking you in person for your continued
interest in my reputation which has been so basely assailed,
but I trust as triumphantly vindicated.
I thank you sincerely for what you have said of Mrs. Kearny.
It would be a great gratification to me to have an interview
with her on the long, long ago, but this is a pleasure which
I now have no encouragement to promise myself.
Believe me most grateful for the repeated calls and
inquiries as to my health which you have been so good as to
make. Such calls are precious fountains of consolation that
will not go dry.
Very sincerely your friend,
J. HOLT.
It has been asserted upon high authority that after the conviction and
sentence of Mrs. Surratt her daughter Anna, as well as Catholic priests
and prominent men in Washington, attempted to see the President in order
to intercede for executive clemency in her behalf, but were denied
admission by Preston King, Collector of the Port of New York and then a
guest at the White House, and by U.S. Senator James Lane of Kansas. It
has also been said that Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas succeeded in reaching
the President by pushing herself past the guards, but her attempts in
behalf of the condemned woman were fruitless.
I knew Preston King very well and his political career interested me
deeply. He was from St. Lawrence County, New York, and in my girlhood I
often heard it asserted that the mantle of Silas Wright had fallen upon
him. I saw much of him in 1849 when I was visiting the Scotts in
Washington, and was particularly impressed by his exceptionally
sensitive nature. General Scott once told me that at one period of his
military career he was ordered to quell a disturbance between Canadians
and Americans near Ogdensburg, the home of Mr. King, and that the latter
was so seriously affected by the scenes he witnessed at that time that
it was long before he recovered his normal condition of mind. During
President Johnson's administration Mr. King, while Collector of the Port
of New York, boarded a Jersey City ferry boat one morning, attached
weights to his person and jumped into the river. When the news of his
death reached me I was not surprised as I had seen evidences of his
nervous temperament which might well result in acts indicative of an
unbalanced mind. He was a man of big heart and exceptional ability, and
in his death the State of New York lost one of her most gifted and
distinguished sons.
The Frederick County agricultural fairs, as far back as my memory of
that quaint Maryland town goes, have always been a feature of special
interest not only to the farmers of that productive region but also from
a social point of view. In bygone days some of the most distinguished
men of the nation made addresses at these "cattle shows," as they were
called by the country folk. I recall the visit of President Grant on one
of these occasions when he was the guest of Mrs. Margaret Goldsborough.
He was accompanied by General Sherman and made a brief address. The
evening of the day these distinguished guests arrived Mrs. Goldsborough
gave a dinner in their honor, which Mr. Gouverneur and I attended. The
entertainment was served in the style then prevalent among old Maryland
families in that vicinity, the _pieces de resistance_ being chicken,
fried to perfection, at one end of the table together with an old ham on
the opposite end. To these were added "side trimmings," enough to almost
bury the table under their weight. President Grant was then filling his
first term as Chief Executive of the nation and, although Mr. Gouverneur
had known him in Mexico, it was my first glimpse of the distinguished
man. As a whole we were a merry party, but Grant was a reticent guest.
General Sherman, however, as usual made up for all deficiencies in this
line, and as he sat next to me I found him to be a highly agreeable
conversationalist. This dinner party proved a great social success and
at its conclusion a number of prominent citizens called to pay their
respects to the guests of honor.
The next year Horace Greeley was the orator of the day at the Frederick
fair, and it fell to our lot to entertain him. He wrote the following
letter to my husband:--
NEW YORK TRIBUNE, New York, Oct. 1, 1871.
Dear Sir:
I expect to be duly on hand to fulfil my engagement to speak
at your County Fair and to stop with you, if that shall be
agreeable to those who have invited me. Will you please see
Mr. C. H. Keefer who invites me and say to him that I am
subject to his order and, with his consent, I shall gladly
accept your invitation.
Yours,
HORACE GREELEY.
S. L. Gouverneur, Esq.,
Frederick, Maryland.
As Mr. Greeley about this time was appearing upon the political horizon
as a prospective presidential candidate, much interest was naturally
centered in his visit. His appearance was decidedly interesting. He was
of the blond type, past middle life and in dress anything but _a la
mode_. I am no student of physiognomy, but if the question had been
asked I should have said that his most prominent trait of character was
benevolence. He wore during this memorable visit the characteristic
white hat, miniature imitations of which during his presidential
candidacy became a campaign badge. I am the fortunate possessor of two
of these souvenirs. They are made of white metal and are attached to
brown ribbons, the color of the latter standing for B. Gratz Brown, the
candidate for Vice-President upon the Greeley ticket.
This visit was the pleasing forerunner of a sincere friendship between
my husband and Horace Greeley. In our intimate association of a few days
we recognized as never before his conscientious purpose and intellectual
power, and Mr. Gouverneur was so deeply impressed by his remarkable
ability and sterling character that later in the same year he started a
newspaper in Frederick, which he called _The Maryland Herald_, with a
view of advocating his nomination for the Presidency. My husband had
never before been especially interested in politics, but he now entered
the political arena with all the enthusiasm of his intense nature, and,
at a mass meeting in Frederick, was chosen a delegate to the National
Liberal Republican Convention in Cincinnati, which resulted in the
nomination of Greeley and Brown. Although this party was largely
composed of Republicans who had become dissatisfied with the Grant
administration, it will be remembered that its candidates were
subsequently endorsed by the Democratic party at its convention in
Baltimore, and that the fusion of such hitherto discordant political
elements added exceptional interest to the subsequent campaign. The