Wishing you and your family a pleasant voyage believe me
Yours truly
J. E. Gray
Bachman was married in 1849 to Maria Martin,[219] his former wife's sister, who had aided Audubon in drawing the accessories of his large plates. While engaged upon the Quadrupeds, he wrote to Victor Audubon, from Madison Springs, Georgia, on June 30 of that year, as follows:[220]
I began working four hours a day, now I can work for twelve. I shall lessen the hours, should I find my strength failing. This is my tenth working-day. I have finished seventeen articles, and arranged notes for another. I have used as many of your notes as I could. Maria copies carefully. She lops off to the right and the left with your notes and mine: she corrects, criticizes, abuses, and praises us by turns. Your father's notes, copied from his journal, are valuable—they contain real information; some of the others are humbug and rigmarole; but you have done so well as to surprise us....
I hope that if nothing untoward happens, the Second Volume will be finished in a month, and the Third Volume next winter.
LETTER OF JOHN BACHMAN, NOVEMBER 7, 1846, ADDRESSED TO MR. GEORGE OATES, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.
From the Jeanes MSS.
About thirty years later, when Victor Audubon's sister-in-law[221] was making a disposition of his literary effects, a bundle of manuscripts was saved and given to Mr. George Bird Grinnell. Included in it were a number of Audubon's letters, which are now reproduced, as well as a considerable section of the printer's copy of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Volume I; this was in various handwritings, including little of Bachman's himself, much of Victor's and of John G. Bell's; a little of this copy also was made by the second Mrs. Bachman and by other and unknown hands, possibly those of one of Bachman's daughters and of his son-in-law, Reverend John Haskell, all of whom are known to have assisted in this labor.