Things move on.
“The mills of the Gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine.” Wait in Cuba a year longer, and you may return to a country in which slavery, having tried to get more, has lost all, and as a system is defunct, to the lasting benefit of all parties.
You might now revisit your old Texan haunts, under General Banks’s protection.
The November elections show a united North. Peace democracy has made its issue, and is dead. The reëlection of Lincoln by acclamation seems probable, supported by moderate men of all sorts, the extremes of the opposing parties alone going against him....
Merry Christmas to you.
January 21, 1864.
By the steamer of Saturday, which takes this, a good young fellow, Mr. Kennedy, a member of our Senior class, goes to Cuba, to look after business of his father, and, when he can, to botanize, only four or five weeks, that is, in vacation. He is very fond of botany, and bids fair to be a botanist some day, if he does not take to money-making instead....
This war, we think, will be pretty much over next summer; and then, back in the Union, with slavery pretty much nowhere, by the hearty wish of a majority of the people, we may expect a career of prosperity and real advance of the South, such as it has never known. At least we hope so.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
Cambridge, December 25, 1863.