Voices from the Past Part 165

Let us think as brothers. The great rebellion, which we have endured together, must be forgotten. Now, starting at once, each state must be granted full privileges of the Union as soon as state governments can organize and as soon as 10% of its citizens have taken the oath of allegiance. It is our national goal to offer clemency and pardon as we attain peace, peace for our democracy. I will at once lift the naval blockade. I will urge Congress to appropriate $400,000,000 to a.s.sist the South in its economic recovery. Ours is no longer a nation within a nation; ours is a victory for all mankind.

April 10, 1865

Evening

Beautiful sunset

Now that the war is over, Grant thinks we can reduce army expenditures by at least a half a million per day.

We can reduce navy costs at the same time; this will bring down our national debt to something like normal proportions.

I am cheered by such prospects.

Peace is ahead and I will be exploring its possibilities intensively. It will be a pleasure to convene a cabinet meeting, to discuss economic changes, foreign relations, amnesty, rail expansion, and state laws. I find a new amicability in senate and house.

In another two or three months it may be possible to have a week or so in the Adirondacks, the three of us.

The White House

Sunday-late

Many have come to congratulate me on the cessation of the war, warm praise now that the union is preserved.

Telegrams flood the telegraph office. Boys are always seeking me out, with their hands full of messages. I read newspapers with pleasure. Letters are piling up on my desk; my secretaries are complaining happily.

Everyone in Was.h.i.+ngton is celebrating. There are parties in homes, in churches, schools, hospitals and public buildings. The White House has scheduled a gala. I am happier than I have been in years.

I look forward to attending a play at Ford's Theatre. I am told that it is a play full of puns. I am in a mood for something light.

I am also told that we are having corn bread at supper.

Note-

Estimate s: North

360,000 killed in action

South -

260,000 killed in action

The White House

April 14, 1865

-rain-

Mary invited Laura Keene, the British actress, to tea.

She is in her forties-rather pretty. Dressed in dark green velvet she suggested something of quality in the theatre. She has her own playhouse in New York City. Her talk was mostly about her acting days in London where she produced and acted in foreign and American plays.

She said that she is a friend of Taylor, the author of Our American Cousin. "He has written over a hundred plays," she told us.

I spun a frontier story or two; she listened rather absently, her hands in her lap; Mary queried her about forthcoming New York productions; very abruptly Miss Keene exclaimed that she hated war; she said that slavery could have been abolished without destroying lives.

When Tad bounced in she made over him. He took to her, laughing hilariously over her British accent as she asked him to solve a riddle.

"Say it again, pretty lady," he urged her.

"I've heard good things about Our American Cousin," I said. "I guess you already know that we'll be seeing the play tomorrow night."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P

aul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was a writer and artist, born in Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Inst.i.tuto de Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and poems; second, as a fine artist, his drawings, ill.u.s.trations, and paintings have been ex- hibited in more than forty one-man shows in leading galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the Atlanta Art Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Inst.i.tute, the Brooks Museum, the Inst.i.tuto-Mexicano- Norteamericano in Mexico City, and many other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his life to the most comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico that has been undertaken. More than 350 of his pen-and-ink ill.u.s.trations of the haciendas and more than one thousand hacienda photographs make up the Paul Alexander Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas, and form part of a second diversified collection held by the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, which also includes an archive of Bartlett's literary work, fine art, and letters.