Wilson, Douglas L., ed.; Davis, Rodney O., ed.; Pierce, Edward L. 'Edward L. Pierce to William H. Herndon' in 'Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln' . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. [format: book], [genre: letter]. Permission: University of Illinois Press
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=herndon677.html

I had some correspondence with yourself in '60 — '61 when I was anxious that Mr Lincoln should stand firm and I feared that he would come too much under the compromising influence of Mr. Seward.

You may perhaps recal my name in connection with a law book on railways and Mr Sumner's Memoirs ^[5]

I have said to Mr Hay ^[6] that biographers of Mr Lincoln avoid the subject of Mr Lincoln's great unpopularity with Congress in 1863 or about that period. I was myself at the time greatly disgusted with his scheme for the transporting the negro population out of the country — which was the subject of the Ile À Vache expedition under Senator Pomeroys patronage ^[7] He was at the time as strong with the people as ever, but few MC's spoke well of him. Mr Blaine in his history ^[8] touches upon one cause — his treatment of the reconstruction bill. His retention of Seward had probably something to do with it — and there was also a feeling growing out of Mr Lincolns manner and style of conversation that he was not profoundly in earnest. This last feeling passed away with the Gettysburg speech. ^[9]

Library of Congress: Herndon-Weik Collection. Manuscript Division. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. 3582 — 83