The Gerard                 

123 W. 44^th Street

 

My very dear and honored 

friend Mr Reagan,

            Your kind letter has just been received and I have not words to adequately thank you for all your affectionate defence of your loving friend my husband from the dastardly attacks made upon him both in life and death. This present one is the more painful to me as it was / made before the memorial society by a citizen or Mississippian—There is no such bright page in the history of Mississippi as the one on which Mr. Davis' name is inscribed. I shall not live to see another since he, Lamar and Walthall have lain down to rest "on the other side of the river".

 

I hate to think you will soon be eighty years old, and pray God it may be long before your wise and honorable head is laid low. I was seventy two on the seventh of May but I am like the wedding guests in the scripture "Lame halt and blind" all in some measure. Do give my best love to Col and Mrs Lubbock, and to your Jeff, and present me most kindly to Mrs Reagan.

 

Minnie returned home quite well from the East, whither she went with her cousin Mrs Joseph Pulitzer. She sends you her best love and begs you not to forget her.

                                                                                               

always affectionately yours,

V. Jefferson Davis.

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