Very respectfully your friend,
James Buchanan.
[MR. BUCHANAN TO MR. LEIPER.]
Wheatland, February 24, 1865.
My Dear Sir:—
I have received your favor of the 21st instant, and rejoice to learn that your health has so much improved. I trust that the genial air of the spring and the active exercise to which you have been all your life accustomed, may restore you once more to perfect health. Thank God! my own health has been good thus far throughout the severe and inclement weather.
I duly received your letter of the 17th January, and have been under the impression it was answered. I have often since thought of the description which you gave of your happy Christmas meeting with your children and grandchildren under the old paternal roof, and what heartfelt satisfaction it must have afforded to Mrs. Leiper and yourself. I trust that several more such family reunions may be in reserve for you, though we have both attained an age when we cannot expect much time in this world, and when we ought to be preparing to meet our God in peace.
I had not learned, until the receipt of your last, that Mr. Lincoln had joined the Church. Let us hope, in Christian charity, that the act was done in sincerity. The old Presbyterian Church is not now what it was in former years. The last general assembly has thoroughly abolitionized it.
I confess I was much gratified at the capture of Charleston. This city was the nest of all our troubles. For more than a quarter of a century the people were disunionists, and during this whole period have been persistently engaged in inoculating the other slave States with their virus. Alas, for poor Virginia! who has suffered so much, and who was so reluctantly dragged into their support.
Miss Lane is now on a visit to Mrs. Berghman’s (the daughter of Charles Macalester), in Washington city.