Cassius M. Clay.
Mr. Clay also wrote to Mrs. Hussey the following letter, which she sends me for publication:
April 12, 1886.
C. C. Hussey.
Dear Madame: Your letter and circular of the 8th inst. are received. I was a long time a correspondent of Miss C., never having seen her, but holding a letter of introduction from Vice-President Henry Wilson. I have no standpoint in politics of influence now. * * * Miss Carroll's case shows the infinite baseness of human nature—how few worship truth and justice. I am already assailed for speaking a word in her cause, and shall have all the old feuds against me revived; but I am not dependent upon the American people for subsistence and am not a petitioner for money or office, so I speak my mind.
Very truly yours,
C. M. Clay.
Miss Katharine Mason, Miss Anna C. Waite, Miss Phœbe Couzzins, Mrs. H. J. Boutelle, Mrs. Louisa D. Southworth, Mrs. Esther Herrman, and a host of other prominent ladies in succession took up the cause, publishing articles east and west, and speaking upon the subject or contributing in some way to the cause. Petitions to Congress continued asking attention to Miss Carroll's case, and that due recognition and award should be accorded to her. High-principled Senators and Representatives would take up these petitions and present them with their own endorsement of the case. But ten righteous men count for little among a mass of Senators and Representatives wildly pushing their own individual and party measures. Every human being with a ballot might be worthy of their attention, but a disfranchised class must go to the wall. With every extension of the ballot such a class sinks deeper and deeper in the scale, and the disregard and contempt for women and their claims becomes inborn—for law is an educator.
In the spring of 1890 Mr. and Mrs. Root spent weeks in Washington verifying, step by step, the incontrovertible facts of Miss Carroll's work. The Woman's Tribune, of Washington, generously published a large edition of their report, enclosed advanced sheets, with a personal letter, to every Senator and Representative, and laid them upon their desks, with the invariable result of continued neglect.
Mrs. Abby Gannett Wells, of a highly cultivated Boston family, took up the cause with enthusiasm, made a tour among the army relief posts, and created among soldiers and soldiers' wives a lively interest in the work of their great coadjutor. Tokens of recognition were sent to Miss Carroll, and many a retired veteran, beside his evening fire, put down his name to petitions for her just recognition. Then this brave lady made another effort. She published in the Boston Sunday Herald, of February, 1890, an account, from which we give the following extract, having already given extracts from the earlier portion:
"In the last year so many women throughout the country had come to take an interest in this case, petitions to Congress asking for Miss Carroll's suitable recognition and remuneration were sent in considerable numbers, some being presented in the Senate by Mr. Hoar and some in the House by Mr. Lodge. In September last, at an interview with these gentlemen in Boston, I learned it to be their opinion that if I made a plea in Miss Carroll's behalf before the two Congressional Committees on Military Affairs an interest might be aroused to lead to successful results. I therefore promised to visit Washington, and went to the city in the second week in February of the present year.
"The bill calling for an appropriation from Congress for Miss Carroll's services during the civil war, such services consisting of the preparation of papers used as war measures and the furnishing of the military plan for our western armies, known as the plan of the Tennessee campaign, had already been presented in the Senate by General Manderson, of Nebraska, and in the House by Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts. As Mr. Hoar was ill when I arrived in Washington, he wrote a letter to Mr. Manderson, asking for an early hearing for me, and then sent his private secretary to conduct me to that gentleman in person. I write particulars of the obtaining of these hearings simply to show that even a case demanding urgent action like this finds unexpected obstacles that threaten to retard it indefinitely.