When a private letter of mine was published some time since, condemning the desertion of the flag by the officers of the army and the navy, you know it was made the occasion to abuse me by the Black Republican papers. Knowing our relations of intimate friendship, it would be said that we had concocted a plan to bring me before the public in self-defence in an indirect manner.
Ever your friend,
James Buchanan.
[JUDGE BLACK TO MR. BUCHANAN.]
Washington, September 9th, 1861.
My Dear Sir:—
There seems to be a dead pause here in everything but making appointments and contracts. If there is to be a battle, nobody knows it, not even those who are to fight it, unless by conjecture. But it is not easy to see how it can be avoided very long. The ground that Beauregard leaves McClellan to stand upon is getting narrower every day. But each has a wholesome fear of the other. It is terrible enough to think of the momentous interests at stake upon the issue. And that issue may be determined by the state of the weather, the condition of the ground, or the slightest blunder of an officer.
Mrs. Gwynn, it seems, was not arrested. I told you I did not believe either that she had been arrested or given the cause of accusation which was alleged against her. It was another lady of the same name—Mrs. Gwynn of Alexandria—who sewed up plans and documents in shirts, unless, indeed, the whole story is a fable invented by that “perfectly reliable gentleman” who has been engaged in furnishing lies for the newspapers as far back as I can remember.
Mr. Glossbrenner furnished me a fair copy of the paper before I left York. I shall soon have it in shape. I have already made some progress in it.
My regards to Miss Lane, and believe me