From Thomas Claiborne Sr., 3 May 1849
Nashville 3rd May 1849
Dear Thos.
I saw a day or two since an Order March for the Army from Ft. Leavenworth to commence on the 10th. Inst. which anticipates by four days what I had previously understood to be the arrangement. I therefore now set down to write to you which I had hitherto delayed expecting to hear from you before I should do so. [A]s however you have not thought proper to do so, or if you have it has not come to hand, I conclude to wait no longer—and first your Mother is very desirous to know whether the Preserves & Pickles she sent to you ever came to hand or not, they must have reached St. Louis, about the time or shortly after you left Jefferson Barracks, they were forwarded by Miller of the Susquehana, could you have gotten them along into the plains they would prove a most delightful comfort.
We understand that there will be a large croud of Emigrants to go with the Army in the progress West and if this should be the case there will be immense suffering in as much as it will be impossible that the grass should be able to supply food for the large Stock of Animals that will be indispensably necessary to take them along, not only then, will most if not all these animals starve, but in their loss the poor immegrants themselves must suffer many & great hardships if they also or many of them do not themselves also starve—they will not be able simply to make such a journey under the gold mania which has so far stimulated them and however little the men so engaged may be [entitled] to the sympathy of the benevolent, yet for the poor Women & Children they at least are deserving all our sympathies, because they are the victims of the folly and madness of Fathers husbands Brothers or other guardians—but so goes the world we live in. I see that Major Crittenden of your Regiment has been for the second time restored to his command,1 the truth of the old adidge kissing goes by favor again in his case reaffirmed, and without reference to his case simply on the score of merit of which I know nothing, I take it for granted that his Subalterns are not very greatly delighted at his restoration, [illegible]ing that it will interpose an obstacle to their own promotion. [B]y the way the new Taylor administration has so far made party the only test for office, and in doing so they have lighted upon much of the worst portion of their own party. I shall not now particularize, it is not necessary. Your Brother John2 it seems took time by the forelock and resigned rather than be dismissed, so has many others, in which I I [sic] think they were wrong, one thing however is most clear and manifest and that is that the American people have never been more thoroughly humbugged not even by the Harrison case than now by Taylor and his no party party [sic] friends, nevertheless they are the people are but justly punished, for their folly and credulity.3 Taylor never stood before them as he should have done to command their confidence. No man deserves confidence who withholds his honest opinions and convictions when called to declare them, much less should one be credited as, or for the Chief Executive who agrees in advance to refuse to exercise one of the most clear and important principles in the Constitution which he swears to support all this Taylor has done and more towit he had neither friends to reward nor yet enemies to punish, nor would he be the President of a party—more hypocritical declarations were never made by any man upon any subject, as a proof he is so much a partizan that he appoints only from the Whig party—he is rewarding the most Wreckless and unprincipled partizans witness Warren of Iowa Goodrich of Tennessee Hall of our town.4 [N]ow the first is charged with Subordination of Perjury, the 2nd. appointed Chief Justice of the New Territory of Minesota, is a low, ignorant Vulgar, Whoremonger, with not legal knowledge enough for a Common Justice of the Peace. I could multiply divers such dishonorable selections but enough. Allen A Hall to be Register of the Treasury caps the Climax—, and as they are cleaning the Augean Stable, of its contaminating filth, to serve the clamor of needy adventurers. I suppose that those named are the most needy if not the most meritorious of their kind,—but as I have said before it is just such a state of things as the people have deserved, they are not worthy of a virtuous government. Patriotism is banished from the public counsels and every one now desires to promote himself or party at the expense of the Welfare and honor of the Country—but why shall I trouble myself about such matters as these. I cannot remedy them, and I truly thank God that I am now so old that I shall not suffer much by them seeing that I shall be Sixtynine on the 17th. of this month should I live so long, hence I will try to imitate the Spaniard who when it rains, lets it rain.5 McCall6 & wife obtained a Decree against Whites Heirs a few days ago for something upwards of $50,000 from which judgment an appeal has been taken, and it will probably be not heard in the Court of Appeals untill August 1850 at Lewisburg Va. whenever it is heard MCall expects to obtain a Decree in the whole to the amt. of 95,000 or thereabouts, the one ninth of the one half of which will be yours. Mr. Ramage & family are expected here in a few days they are well,7 as indeed are all your family Connections. Martha Hall was sometime since married to Peabody his Father then as yet absent he is in Texas. Mrs. Franklin is to be married to Mr. Acland of Alabama on Tuesday next. Your Mother has gone to Stones River with a Picknick fishing party today but sends love to you. We shall not know where to direct a letter to you untill you shall inform us, so you must write as soon as possible. Our town & my family are well we expect John up in June. Our season so far has been very dry & cold especially the principle part of April. The Rout[e] being about to start I have not time to begin another sheet. So now farewell & may God bless & prosper you is the prayer of your friend & Father.
Th: Claiborne
1. George B. Crittenden was appointed Major in the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen in April 1848. See Adjutant General’s Office, Official Army Register for 1851 (Washington: U.S. War Department, 1851), 14.↩
2. John Claiborne.↩
3. William Henry Harrison of the Whig Party was elected President of the United States in 1840 but served only one month before his death in April 1841. His Vice President John Tyler succeeded him. After Polk’s term, the Whig Zachary Taylor was elected President in 1849. See Francis S. Drake, Dictionary of American Biography, Including Men of the Time (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1872), 412, 896.↩
4. Fitz Henry Warren was appointed First Assistant Post Master General by President Taylor; see Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, 4 vols. (New York: Century History Company, 1903), 4: 279. Allen A. Hall was a lawyer and journalist in Nashville. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1849-50; see Drake, Dictionary of American Biography, 396. Taylor appointed Aaron Goodrich to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Minnesota Territory in 1849, where he served for three years; see William H. C. Folsom, Fifty Years in the Northwest (Minnesota: Pioneer Press Company, 1888), 575.↩
5. Thomas Claiborne, Sr. was born in 1780 and lived until 1856. He was a lawyer in Nashville and also served as a Republican in Tennessee’s General Assembly and one term as a U.S. Congressman in 1817-18. See “Claiborne, Thomas, (1780-1856),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; available from http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000407; accessed 25 April 2008.↩
6. Jim MCall, a family acquaintance.↩
7. Most likely John Stewart Ramage (1830-1918) or his father William Ramage. See the papers of John Stewart Ramage [finding aid], Tennessee State Library and Archives; available at http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/history/manuscripts/findingaids/265.pdf; accessed 29 April 2008.↩