Raleigh NC Apr 28^th 1865

 

My Dear George

                                    Your letter of the 16^th was received a few days ago. For it as well as for the Atlantics and Reviews sent me accept my thanks.

 

            It is scarcely necessary for me to express to you my sentiments of horror and of sorrow at the assassination of Mr Lincoln. To our army the first intelligence of the death of our President proved a blow from which it has not yet recovered. We all feel that no man could have been more illy spared than he who has perished a martyr to the cause of liberty and right. And yet despite the cause we have for bitter grief we should be thankful to the Great Ruler that he was spared to us through the darkest days of our crisis: that although like/ Moses he died ere he entered the Promised Land, yet also like Moses he was spared to bring us within clear view of its beauty and glory. Having gone safely through the wilderness of war, having reached the confines of the Canaan of peace, the crossing over Jordan is comparatively a light task.

 

            My regrets for the death of the President were I must confess greatly enhanced by the doubts I entertained of the capacity and fitness of Vice President. Still I hope that the awful responsibilities of the office to which Mr Johnson is so suddenly called may make him by their very momentousness sensible of his duties. I have been favorably impressed with the speeches made by Mr Johnson, since his succession to the Presidency, and I am induced to hope that after all he is better fitted for the position he now occupies. Judging/ tenor of those speeches, it would seem that the cause of treason has profitted but little by the exchange of Mr Lincoln for Mr Johnson. The South lost their best friend in President Lincoln, they have gained a strict executor of sternest justice. Whilst I believe in the exercise of the most liberal charity to all the people of the South, I believe no punishment can be too severe to award to the traitors who have been the prominent leaders of the Rebellion. I must confess that prior to the murder of Mr Lincoln I was in favor of an amnesty so broad as to include all who should yield to the authority of the National Government, not even excepting the arch traitor himself—But now since to the river of blood of hundreds of thousands of our brethren crying from the ground for revenge is added that of our martyred President, I feel as/ though we should be false to ourselves, false to our dead, did we suffer those on whom rests the dread responsibility of causing this terrible war, to escape unharmed.

 

Ere this reaches you, you will have learned of Johnston’s surrender and the virtual termination of the war this side of the Chattahoochie River. In consequence of the labor of “Sherman’s army” being accomplished, two of the subordinate armies Georgia and Tennessee, have been ordered North. Our Corps will probably leave on Sunday or Monday, marching to Alexandria or Washington via Richmond. We will probably reach Richmond on the 15^th of May and Alexandria on or before the 1^st of June. It is probable that the majority if not the whole of these armies will be mustered out of service within one month after our arrival at either Alexandria or Washington. I hope to be home, if the war is actually terminated by the end of July at the furthest, and then to doff forever the uniform of the soldier.

 

                                                                                                                        April 29^th

            I have a favor to ask of you, it is this. I wish to present to a lady friend of mine a copy of Tennyson’s Poems and I wish you to procure it for me. calling upon Father for the necessary “cash”. I want you to purchase the handsomest complete edition of Tennyson you can find. Ficknor & Co have announced the publication of a “[?] Edition/ edition which I believe is or is to be very fine. I am uncertain however whether this is yet published. If there is no finer complete edition, I would like you to purchase Ficknor & Co Cabinet Edition (2 vols) (which I think is complete with the exception of Enoch Arden and the recent poems published with it) and a copy of Enoch Arden of uniform size with the Cabinet Edition, and have them handsomely bound. I think Maud, The Idylls of the King, In Memoriam and all the poems of Tennyson are included in that edition, should they not be you will please procure the volumes containing them. My wish is to have a perfectly complete edition. Should either of the poems named be procured not being in the Cabinet Edition, you will have them bound with Enoch Arden in one vol-/ume or more as the size may require. The binding I should like to be in the following style—full morocco, heavy backs and sides, panelled (unless you consider the books too small to admit of that to advantage; gilt edges; first fly leaf and cover lining dark brown (as in antique). The color of the morocco to be dark purple; on the back, in their respective places Tennyson. I II III. M. &. L., omitting “poems” and “vol”; on the sides or rather on one side of each volume in the centre Tennyson. In case purple cannot be obtained, I should prefer a dark green. In brief, I want the books to present a handsome but not a gaudy appearance, to look rich not tawdry.

 

In case you should find a handsome edition in good binding, you need not have it rebound, but from what I can learn, I do not believe there are any editions which will make up more/ handsomely than the Cabinet edition.

 

Although I have spoken of the minute particulars I should like observed, you will be at liberty to make such alterations as you deem best. you know more of the prevailing styles than I, my sole object is to have a handsome and rich edition of Alfred Tennyson.

 

            I would like Father to receive it for transmission, by the 31^st of May. I was much pleased with the Whittier you procured for me in 1863; in this book however I want no paper used on the cover. I want them full morocco.

 

            As I have written so much concerning the book, I will not dwell now upon the Review. I shall only say, you have my heartiest wishes for its success, and my sympathies are with you in your undertaking.

 

            You will please call upon Father for the amount of the subscription/

 

Our Head Quarters are now at the house of a namesake of yours—Gen’l W. D. Case[?], a Brigadier formerly commanding a Division in Stonewall Jackson’s old Corps. The General arrived here a day or two after we entered the city having been paroled in accordance with the terms of Lee’s surrender. Personally I am much pleased with him. he is an educated and intelligent gentleman. He has a fine collection of standard works among which I recognize many of our old favorites. The 17^th Corps started this morning for Richmond, we will probably follow to-morrow. There is a probability that we will be deprived of mail communication until we reach Richmond. Should I be able to write I will do so; if we lay at Alexandria or Washington any length of time, you and Jesse must come down to see me.

 

            Write to me soon, the letter will reach me some time, even if not within a few days after it is mailed. Regards to all my old Prescott friends. My love to you and the rest of your folks, and believe as ever

 

                                                            Sincerely Your Friend,

                                                                        Wm H Lambert

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