From Judah P. Benjamin
4 Lamb Building
Temple— 28th May 1867
My Dear Friend
It is impossible to express to you the joy with which we have at last
received the long wished for news of your release from the cruel and
wicked imprisonment to which you have been subjected — For two long
years you have never for a day been absent from our thoughts, and
whenever “two or three were gathered together” you were the sole theme
of our conversation, and of constant anxious but vain discussion as to
the possibility of doing any thing for your relief—
I have not for eighteen months past had the least idea that there was
any purpose to bring you to trial on the indictment, but I feared
interminable confinement, ruining yr health, and undermining your
spirits — I could well also judge of the effect of the constant yearning
for the sight of your little ones — Now this anxiety is at an end, but I
am shocked at some of the accounts I have seen of yr altered
appearance, of whitened hairs and excessive loss of flesh – I can only
hope that the breath of the fresh and free air, and the solace of
unrestrained intercourse with wife, children, and friends will act effect a complete change, and restore you to the enjoyment of the horse-back exercise so needful to yr constitution —
Pray write me a long, long letter, telling me how you are, whether
you are improving in strength since your release, and how is dear Mrs
Davis and Maggie and Jeff and Willie, and “Pie cake” – How these names
recall to me the anxious hours when we could not but perceive that our
holy and sacred cause was gradually crumbling under a pressure too
grievous to be borne, and when we looked every where in vain for some
sign of sympathy, some promise of help, some ray of hope –
MacRae and I are left here alone, and he is going soon to British
Honduras with a view to settlement – no man ever had a truer or more
devoted friend than you have in him, and since Mr Mason’s departure his
is the only one with whom I have the least pleasure in talking over the
past – Hotze is as faithful as ever, but he is engaged on the continent
in connection with Reuter’s Express Co. & I seldom meet him – My
wife and daughter are incessant in their enquiries about you and Mrs
Davis – Their sympathy was of course all the grater from the fact that
they were for some months utterly without means of knowing whether I was
alive or dead — They have just gone to
the waters of Luchon, for the health of both is not quite what I should
desire – As for myself, you know already all that I could tell you – I
am hard at work, just making a living and no more, but most thankful
that I can do this, when I know that while I am now here in peace, and
free from suffering, our country is reduced to the deplorable condition
in which it now is – I will say nothing however of public matters of
which you have more than enough from those about you, but close with a
warm and earnest pressure of your hand – Ever yours truly
J.P. Benjamin
Breckenridge is here & well - Speaks of going back to Canada in the fall —
From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 12, pp 203-205. Transcribed from the original at the College of William and Mary, Davis Collection.