Charles Anderson to Richard Yates

With petition from Member of House and Members of Senate of State of Ohio in regard to Charles Anderson 2/21/65

I take the liberty of enclosing the within petition to you for delivery to the President. I dont wish to inveigle you into my cause so, if not according to [considerment?] or inclination or [ceremonial?], for you to proceed in behalf [illegible] so that his [illegible] certainly receive it.

(Private)

Dayton Ohio, Feb 27. 1865

Hon Richard Yates,

USSenate

My dear Sir,

I congratulate you. I congratulate the Country. You are a Senator of -- the United States. Let us pause. To this, a subject of congratulations, to you? We shall soon However, -- perhaps. Sherman, (with the help of after-wise moderation from the Capitol,) will soon solve that riddle of the United States. If we fail; -- all National honors must vanish, with the Nation; into airy nothingness!

But if, (aided, by Providence and not hindered by Father Abraham,) he succeed; then- is the Country to be congratulated at the advent of a new Creation, to the Supreme National Counsels? That in my opinion and according to my taste, will be clearly indicated, by his will and ability to pro=

cure a proper representation of that Country in some other Country; Say, Spain, Austria, Italy, Prussia. Russia, China, or some other elegant, civilized, polite, hospitable, healthy, cheap-happy land, that yearns as much for a new Envoy, as he for it! To drop all circumlocutionary and complimentary diction (for you are not green enough, not to see, what I am after,--) to leap over all equivocations and subterfuges-- I am through sundry friends, an applicant for a foreign Mission. Can you help me? Will You?

I do not think, I am, or ever been a favorite with the Heavenly Father. Leastwise, He has never provided particularly well for me -- except in getting me out of Texas. Otherwise; (if He is on my side As the Rebels say of his fighting on theirs. "He fights with his vizor down." We cant see it! And, doubtless, as I dont deserve #(If that last leap be a possibility--a leap over subterfuges!)

his care, there may be the [illegible] reason, for his Keeping dark, as in the Rebel=Cause. He ought to be ashamed of himself, to fight for such set of damned rascals. They belong to the other side. (I hope you wont think this impious or perfane. Is there any use of a Devil, or Hell if those Rebel, don't belong to them? This is only theological and historical truth leastwise shows that God cant lie &c. &c.)

But the cause for my case," in this shoal of Time ", is, that I dont believe, I am any better favorite with that other, present, National Official- (Officeseeker's) Providence-Father Abraham! Why this is, I am sure I dont know, nor can guess. Is it because I am a Native Kentuckian? He is no better. Is it because I emigrated to Ohio? Didnt he to Illinois? Is it, because, I ran away from Texas? Wouldn't he have done the same, under the same impulse? Perhaps,-

"ah! There's the rub--perhaps, it is because I went there! I say nothing. But, that I, report. Cannot the Prodigal son repent? Is going to Texas, the sin against the Holy Ghost of Patriotism? I fear and tremble.

I used to surmise, that the apology offered by the Picayune (N.D.) for my imprisonment by the S.C.- viz: that I was "a brother of [Sheet?] Anderson and had made an apologetic speech for this tyrant Lincoln" ought not to set me back much with a Union President, or with that particular tyrant. Our friend, Schenck, flattered me greatly, by suggesting that the President didn't know either of the three facts--the flight, or its alledged causes! I think it very likely. But all joking apart I am in earnest about this matter. And I felt justified - obliged -by past memories, to let you know it in this quiet, confidential, way.

Sincerely your friend Charles Anderson