Henry Adams was confidential secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, the American minister to Great Britain. He wrote to his brother Charles, a captain in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry serving in northern Virginia with the Army of the Potomac.
London. 23 January. 1863.
My dear Charles:
I have but a moment till it grows dark and the bag closes, but I don’t think I’ve much to say, so it don’t matter. I’ve had a hard day’s work too, as we generally do on Fridays, and am tired. We are in the dark as to movements at home since the 8th, no steamer being yet in owing I suppose to the awful gales.
We are as usual very quiet, having been dragged the rounds of the Christmas pantomimes and bored to death with them. I wish you or John were here to be funny and amuse people; you know I never could do it, and now I grow stupider and stupider every year as my hair grows thinner. I haven’t even the wit left to talk to girls. I wish I were fifty years old at once, and then I should feel at home.
The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us here than all our former victories and all our diplomacy. It is creating an almost convulsive reaction in our favor all over this country. The London Times is furious and scolds like a drunken drab. Certain it is, however, that public opinion is very deeply stirred here and finds expression in meetings; addresses to Pres. Lincoln; deputations to us; standing committees to agitate the subject and to affect opinion; and all the other symptoms of a great popular movement peculiarly unpleasant to the upper classes here because it rests altogether on the spontaneous action of the laboring classes and has a pestilent squint at sympathy with republicanism. But the Times is on its last legs and has lost its temper. They say it always does lose its temper when it finds such a feeling too strong for it, and its next step will be to come round and try to guide it. We are much encouraged and in high spirits. If only you at home don’t have disasters, we will give such a checkmate to the foreign hopes of the rebels as they never yet have had.
We are all well and happy. I am at last on the point of buying a little mare and expect to have to hand her over to Mary, as her own horse is rather too much for her. Also having had my watch, hat and purse stolen at my celebrated Turkish baths, I have succeeded in obtaining a compensation of £15.0.0. with which I propose immediately to invest in a new watch. The exchange would be an inducement to invest at home, where I do not hear that my income has materially increased in spite of the superfluity of money. The mare costs £40.0.0 and will cost me at least £5.0.0 a month in keep.
Lebe wohl. Time is up and the Chief is a cussin and swearin like anythink for my letters.
Ever Yrs.