“I presume you are aware that there are very few persons in this country who have had any experience in the manufacture, working, or laying of submarine cables of any great importance.
“Very respectfully
“Your obedient servant,
“Cyrus W. Field.”
June 16th, while in Washington, he received a pass “beyond the pickets and to return, good for five days.” On July 30th he wrote to Captain G. V. Fox, of the Navy Department:
“In a letter I wrote the Secretary of the Treasury on the 11th of May last I used these words, viz.: ‘For the government to send at once a confidential agent to England, with a competent naval officer, to obtain from the British government by purchase, or otherwise, some of the improved steam gun-boats and other vessels to protect our commerce and to assist in blockading Southern ports.’ ”
It was at this time that his firm in New York wrote to him that a debt of $1800 had been paid and that $1000 was in silver. Such a payment would hardly be appreciated now.
His mother’s death, on the evening of Friday, August the 16th, was made known to those living in the village of Stockbridge, according to the custom of that time, by the tolling of the church-bell. After that six strokes were given to show that a woman had died, nine would have been struck for a man, or three for a child. Her age was then slowly rung, and as one year after another was recorded, each brought back to her family the joy or sorrow with which that year had been filled.
Her funeral was on Sunday, the 18th. A number of her friends among the elderly ladies of the town acted as pall-bearers, and another custom then observed was for the officiating clergyman, after the grave had been filled—and every one waited until that was done—to return thanks in the name of the family to all who had shown them kindness and sympathy in their bereavement. Of her funeral the Rev. John Todd, of Pittsfield, Mass., wrote:
“At the gateway of one of our beautiful rural cemeteries a large funeral was just entering.... The bier was resting on the shoulders of four tall, noble-looking men in the prime of life.... Very slowly and carefully they trod, as if the sleeper should not feel the motion. And who was on the bier, so carefully and tenderly borne? It was their own mother. Never did I see a grief more reverent or respect more profound.”
A few days later Mr. Field wrote to a friend, on the death of a child:
“Having myself experienced such a calamity, I can judge of your feelings, and most sincerely sympathize with you and your good wife on this melancholy occasion. I hope you will both bear it with Christian fortitude, for it is God’s will, and no doubt for some wise purpose.”