2008-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008
BRACE, Charles Loring (1826-1890) was a contributing philanthropist in the field of social reform. He is considered a father of the modern foster care movement and was most renowned for starting the Orphan Train movement of the mid-1800s. Brace was deeply moved by Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, having read it fifty-two times. Brace was also an outspoken abolitionist. In a bold move (and perhaps inspired by his abolitionist and Darwinian mindset), Brace did away with the centuries-old custom of indenture so that the "placed" children were allowed to leave a home if they were uncomfortable with the placement. Autograph Letter Signed, “C.L. Brace” 10p. octavo, Weaver’s Cliff House, Newport, August 7, 1861, and reads in part: “...I have at once read over the letter you refer to - and Mrs. Stowe’s also. The two are so entirely different in purpose & subject, taht I can not well compare them. The objections to mine are the accounts of the want of discipline in Washington, and the personal allusion to the President. So far from reposting what I said about that disgraceful neglect or timidity in the Washington authorities towards the disbanded regiments, I should like to make ita hundred times stronger. No words can adequitly express the wrong & evil, it has done us all - In every possible way. Since I have been in the Capitol, I have tried to expose this toxity of discipline. And it is a good omen, that the very moment Gen. McClellan asumed authority, he did what the Pres. had ben calling for, for weeks appoint a Provost Marshall who should rank all regimental officers & patrols to arrest all officers & soldiers without a pass in the city. YOu can have no conception of the state of things...rapes, murders & drunkeness every day - regiments [?] disorganized - officers smoking & lounging in the hotels, many a young man begining a career of intoxication & license in that fatal work! That was our defeat, much more than the flight from the Stoney Bridge, and a defeat without excuse or palliation. We of the Sanitary Comm. knew of this much better tahn the Govt. Not a man of our Commission or its associaties believed Washington could have withstood Beauregard that week, if this state of things had been allowed to continue. It was the intense feeling of this, which led me to speak as I did to Mr. Schuyler, knowing his influence at head-quarters and that he could get much of this reformed. It was no ‘want of courage’ or nerve but a knowledge of our conviction. I still think that Gen. Mansfield ought to have been tried for it...As to the illusion to the President I feel that both he and the whole cabinet and the general authorities are not sufficiently in earnest. They are taking things far too easily. As Commander-in-Chief of our armies, Mr. Lincoln instead of making speeches, should have been around the city, seeing that the Regiments were being collected & preparations were being made for an attack, which (if Beauregard had not been dreadfuly cut up) would have certainly been made that day. The whole proceeding looked trivial - & yet characteristic. Just see how traitors are housed in confidential places in the Govt. (this fact is admitted in W.); see how timid or treacherous officers who are losing millions of property & destroying lives, like Comm. McCanby, Patterson, Gen Pierce & others never even have an investigation made; see the discharges of prisoners, the forbidding of fugitive slaves to enter camps; contrast success at the West & defeat here; look at the utter want of unity-of-pan in the campaign of Virginia - no movement from Fort Monroe & from Patterson with McDowell - Now I say that these things show a lack of earnestness & realization that this is a struggle for life & death. Our People must rise up to the position of the French people in the first French Revolution. They must feel that the hand of the enemy is at our throat. They must be terribly in earnest. Weak generals & in competant heads (political) taken off...Will we do this, we can not in my judgement conquer the South. This is no time for soft words, & feminine charity. The Government, while cordially supported, ought to understand that it is exposed to the sharpest criticism...Welles is a man taht nothing but the most fiery spurring will make guns go at a pig-trot - Cameron needs the eyes of a hundred thousand sharp Congresional Comm. to keep him straight for the public interesst...North & South must atone for its wrongs to the slave. That above even the canoe of American Government is the canoe of the slave, and that we must suffer terribly befoer a just God for the wrongs we have (as a Nation) permitted or perpetrated. I think we shall conquer the South - subjugate them, but not till we have risen up to the stand point of justice & proclaimed Emancipation...” VG.
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