Chapin’s Farm, Pa.,
February 25, 1865.
Dear Father:—
The war seems to be moving on with irresistible grandeur. Its progress is like the motions of the planets— almost imperceptible, but steady and sure. We see it more by its results than anything else. Who can tell when this nation determined to uproot the cause of our troubles? We know they had not so determined two years ago, and now we know they have passed the point of that determination.
T(illegible) that opposes us is just as steadily crumbling a(illegible) by one, its cities, its arsenals, its railroads, it’s a (illegible) slipping from its grasp. Its approach to the “l (illegible) is steady, and by and by it will be tumbled i(illegible) the bells of peace ring out over the land their w (illegible) otes, we shall have thrown the last spadeful of earth on the bloody carcasses of slavery, aristocracy of color, state rights, and all the demons of that ilk that have troubled us so long.
This is a glorious age. There is something grand in the way Honest Old Abe is steering the ship of state through the breakers of the revolution. He may be a very common man now, but school boys to come will revere him as at least the step-father of his country.
