During the fall of 1864, I took my two daughters and went as far as Oxford county, Canada, to pay a visit to a dear family with whom I became acquainted in Buffalo. The weather was most delightful, and we enjoyed ourselves very much indeed during the month we remained on the farm. At that time I wrote the following letter to Tom, and will here introduce it, as it will speak for itself:
"RICHMOND HILL, Oxford Co., Canada, Sept., 1864.
"To Captain Thomas Lincoln,
"My Dear Husband.—The children and I took the train at Buffalo and came here two weeks ago, to pay a long-promised visit to the Gibsons at 'Richmond Hill' farm, which lies in the county of Oxford some ten or twelve miles from the nearest station on the railroad. We left Buffalo early in the morning, and thus had the whole day before us, and plenty of leisure to look at the highly cultivated country through which we passed. The country was truly delightful all the way to Ingersoll, were we got out of the train, and where one of the Gibsons met us with a buggy. We all got in, and the children and I were greatly pleased with the charming country all around us, the farms being in such a high state of cultivation. But it was not all farming land that we passed through, for our way in one place led us through the forest, where the squirrels were running in perfect freedom overhead in the branches, and we could hear the woodman's axe ringing both far and near and bringing down the tall trees. After we had come about ten miles, we saw 'Richmond Hill' high up on the rising ground on the far side of a very narrow valley, that ran down to the cypress swamp away on our right hand. So we issued out of the woods on the top of the hill we were now descending, made our way along the creek at the bottom for a little distance to the right, and then we opened a big country gate and made our way up through the fields to the farm house door. While the girls and I were looking around at the grand view presented on all hands to our astonished eyes, the front house door opened, and out came Mrs. Gibson and her two daughters, and as many of the sons as were at home at the time of our arrival. They helped us out of the buggy, kissed and embraced us most rapturously, and gave us a very warm, hearty and enthusiastic welcome. (My whole soul fairly grows warm when I think of that welcome among the good Canadians). So they brought us into their nice house, which reminded me of the 'Palace Beautiful' in the Pilgrim's Progress. I had a little room for myself on a wing of the house. They called my room the 'Guest Chamber,' and it was a snug room with a pretty name I am sure. The girls slept in another small room near my own. Our things were all brought into the house and well disposed of within reach, and we felt most thoroughly at home among a kind people whose loving ways filled me and the girls with surprise. Mr. Gibson himself came home during the day, and gave us a warm welcome to Richmond Hill, and we saw the whole family with the exception of two who were not at home at that time.
"The friends and neighbors round about heard of our arrival and came to see us, and to invite me and the girls to pay them a visit as soon as ever we were able to do so. Indeed, had I known of the beauty and enchantment of this place and such a kind family, I would have been here long ago, never you fear!
"This glorious visit to Richmond Hill, where we have already been for two weeks, seems to the girls and me the essence of all enchantment, and the very ground we tread upon seems to be perfectly enchanted ground. The weather is so fine, the Gibsons themselves are so refined and polished, and there is so much beauty all around us, that life itself seems to be one long day of joy. It is so delightful to climb the hill behind the house, and look across the deep and narrow valley below us to the primæval forests through which we rode; then we can see the winding creek away to our right, and the evergreen cypress swamp away upon our left. After we have seen all that, there are still the farm houses and cottages lying all round about us on the hill tops, and we often turn into one of them and sit down for an hour after our walk.
"The Gibsons are neither Secesh, nor semi-Unionists, nor even Copperheads! They are good Union people out and out, and they are for the restoration of the American Union. You would be thunderstruck if you were here and beheld the overwhelming interest that the Canadians take in the Civil War in the States. They are mostly Unionists, but some few would rather see the South win,—just the very same as they are in England and France. But we need not blame these few Canadians, nor go all the way across the North Atlantic to England, and Germany, and France, for all the Northern States are honeycombed with Democrats and semi-Unionists called 'Copperheads,' who are doing almost as much harm to our arms as the rebels themselves; because they sympathize with the South,—they desire them to retain their slaves, and would object to the colored man being made a freeman and a citizen. They have no heart for the Union with freedom.
"We have little cause indeed to find fault with Southern sympathizers far, far away beyond the deep, blue seas, when they are swarming all over the North, and are found mixed up in every part of the Union,—East, West and South as well. There are tens of thousands of people, who, I firmly believe, would rather see the very Union itself broken up than that the curse of slavery should now come to an end! We here in Canada have nothing to do but look around us to see the proofs of all this. In these trying days, when Uncle Sam is compelled to resort to one draft after another draft, to fill up the depleted ranks of our armies, there are thousands and tens of thousands of men who have crossed over here into British America, and I have seen plenty of them with my own eyes. One day I met quite a fine young doctor from Maine,—quite a fine medical man, and a good looking fellow to boot, who addressed me in these words, "I was at home in Maine with my newly married wife when the draft came, and I was taken. I have no hatred against Southern men who never did me any harm, and considered I had no right to throw my young life away on Southern bullets. I had also other conscientious objections to the whole business, and did not consider their war any interest of mine! The Canadian frontier, therefore, being near at hand, it was my own privilege to do just as I pleased—'to use force' as well as they! So I crossed the Canadian border, and here I am in good health and safety! Upon that he drew a letter out of his inside vest pocket,—a letter just received from his wife, along with the photograph of her, which he showed me, and she looked most uncommonly pretty too.
"One day the girls and I were walking along the high road when we met six men who had come over from the Northern States, and all over the length and breadth of Canada, they are everywhere, and indeed, the very woods seem to be full of them!
"The first thing I do in the morning, and the last thing at night, is to pray to our Father in Heaven for you, my own dear Tom,—that he may take care of you; and, if it be his good will and pleasure, to bring you back safe and sound to us at home. I no longer wonder at some people being fond of travel. No wonder, for it has its charms and great ones too. It seems to me so very strange that the children and I,—in a few hours time, should be transported from the City of Buffalo to this romantic and almost ethereal home upon the hills of Western Canada, and then for me to turn around and think of you and the rest of the army battling away for freedom and union in the Fair South! We get the papers here every day. They are brought from the nearest post town which is three miles away, and then we all have such a scramble to hear the latest news from the seat of war, as they call it on their great headlines. It does not surprise me so much that we at home should make such an ado over the war news, but that these Canadians should also take so much interest as ourselves seems to me most astonishing indeed. It is just three miles from here to the post town, and one day we three went to spend the day with some relatives of the Gibsons. On an open space at the entrance to the town stood a large tent,—a kind of show called 'The War in the South.' We paid the showman five cents apiece and went in to see the pictures of the war set out on the canvas. We looked through the round, bull-eye glasses, and the general effect was to magnify the whole scene to a very great extent. I must confess that after all that I have read and heard, this peep-show, or whatever else you may call it, gave me a better idea of the field of war, and its far-spreading extent than all I have ever learned from other sources,—all put together.